Little Pieces
by justsotv
Summary: AU: Quinn is living in a mental institution and after having to deal with a roommate that tried to eat her hair, she honestly didn't believe any replacements would trigger as many feelings on her. Well this one did, but a whole new kind of feeling. - TW: Self-Harming, Suicide Thoughts.
1. Chapter 1

Quinn was asleep until screams coming down the hall woke her up. She groaned and buried her face under the pillow. The door opened and the screaming came closer and closer. She stayed as still as she could: maybe if they thought she was asleep they wouldn't bother her.

"Good morning Mrs. Fabray, it's a beautiful day for you to meet your new roommate!"

Quinn got up from under the pillow quickly, sitting up with her eyes open in startle. The screamer would now share a room with her. She tilted her head to see behind the nurse and her eyes got the sight of a petite, brunette girl, clutching on to the walls with eyes as wide as they could get and red from all the crying. The girl had ceased to scream and now whimpered, with her lower lip trembling, looking around in panic.

Quinn could still remember the day she first got in. It wasn't much different than that. There were only a few of them who would come here on their on will. She was woken up out of her trance with her nurse talking again.

"Come on Quinn, you've already missed breakfast, take your meds and go see your doctor, now!"

She approached Quinn with a glass of water and a tiny glass with three little pills. Two pink ones, and one yellowish. The yellowish makes her feel silly and dizzy, so she kept it hidden behind her teeth when she opened her mouth for the nurse to check if she had swollen them all. When she first got there, she would take eight pills.

Even though her improvement could be confirmed by the lower portion of medication, she didn't feel any better. She got up rumbling and went to the bathroom. The first thing she did, as soon as she closed the door, was spit the yellowish pill in the toilet, and then flush it, of course. Now she could go on with her morning ritual.

She didn't rush herself, though: the later she gets, the less she has to talk to the therapist. And she sure doesn't wanna talk. She looked at the mirror and sighed deeply. She would give anything to recognize herself in there, but all she saw now was some thin blonde hair falling around a lifeless face, with bruised, tired hazel eyes on the middle.

She got out of the bathroom, finally, and all the nurses had already left. There was only the new girl on the room, curled up in fetal position on a corner, rocking herself back and forth. Well, as long as she kept herself quiet, Quinn didn't mind her presence okay.

Quinn walked as slowly as she could:t if someone complained she could always blame the yellowish pill. She looked down the whole way, with her fingers crossed, hoping that no one would try to approach her. Yet, her hazel eyes wouldn't stop wandering around. So many hidden devices she could use. The rusted iron nail, loose in the cleaning cart. A lath hanging in the bottom of one of the doors. Needles. She closes her eyes, imagining how they would feel against her skin.

She sighed deeply and knocked on the door, entering when hearing her doctor talk to her.

Four months of doing the exactly same thing everyday. Sitting on that chair, and answering the doctor's questions as short and rude as she could. Usually her words wouldn't have more than one syllable She knows that if she doesn't change she is never getting out, but these are her problems. She doesn't want a random doctor to know her _stuff_.

The session takes longer than usual today. The doctor spends more and more time lecturing her. Like she hadn't heard all of that before. But she is not sick. She know she isn't. The thing is, she is the only one who can actually see the world. The others are still blind, that's why they're so okay with living on it. But their lives, everything, is a lie. And she doesn't want to lie to herself anymore.

"How do you like your new roommate, Quinn?"

That damn pen. She wasn't even talking, why would that doctor spend so much time scribbling down? She shrugged to the question. She hadn't formed a opinion yet. So far the girl didn't seem that bad. At least not compared to her old roommate, who tried to eat Quinn's hair while she was asleep. Quinn shivered, remembering how weird it was to wake up to that.

"What's on your mind, Quinn? What caused that reaction?"

Quinn growled. That woman caught everything.

As she marched back to her room, she could see two patients bubbling in a corner. She knew they're talking about her. Everyone does. She's known as the grumpy one in the institution: a whole floor with old moribund people, and she is the grumpy one. She doesn't care about it, after all. Her whole life people judged every choice she made, why wouldn't they do that here?

Inside her room, she can see that, even though the girl is still in her corner, she has moved while Quinn wasn't there, because her bags are now unpacked and tucked under her bed. Quinn sat on her bed and kept a deep frown in her face as she analyzed the way the girl disposed her things around the room. At least she didn't touched Quinn things.

There was nothing on the TV, like always. She could go to the music room. Or the arts room. But that would require talking to people - asking for permission - and she wasn't in the mood for that. So she just stood there, sitting in her bed, with her hands laying on her lap.

Not much time passed, and she had already started feeling anxious.

The girl wouldn't stop weeping. She wanted to pick on her nails, but there was no nail left to be picked on. She felt as if a ball was inflating in her throat. She could scream, but that would make her seem weak. Her fingers were restless. She looked at the scars in her arms and all she could remind was how peaceful she felt after cutting. The feeling wouldn't stop growing inside her, and her eyes started to tear up. But she would not cry. She shut them tightly trying to make the feeling go away, and tried to do some exercises she learned that were suppose to help.

They didn't.

She grabbed her pillow and buried her face on it, biting it with her full mouth to relief the tension. It didn't help. She caught the elastic bands the nurse gave her to snap on her wrist when she felt like cutting. It didn't help either. That's what brought her here in the first place. If she couldn't cut, the feeling wouldn't stop building up inside of her, and her head would be flooded with awful thoughts and right now, if she had a way of doing it, she would kill herself.

That's the only way she could be in peace with herself.

She hates her ex-best-friend for telling her parents that she cut herself. She hates her parents for putting her in here. She hates the government for deciding that she could not kill herself, after all, it was her life! She hates the guy that got her pregnant last year.

Oh, the guy that got her pregnant last year. He's the one she blames the most. She had a perfect life: married happy parents, captain of her school's cheerleader team, leader of the celibacy club, a good christian, a great student, and an excellent daughter. Until the day he convinced her that a couple wine coolers would do her no bad.

Her life went downhill after that. She couldn't be a cheerleader anymore, and clearly wasn't suitable for the celibacy club. Her father kicked her out of home, and her mother divorced him for that. Her church wouldn't welcome her anymore. She lost all the influence she had in school. Instead, she got 30 pounds fatter, tones of stretch marks in her hips, belly and thighs, and after nine months, a baby.

The baby could have been her salvation, something for her to hold on to. But she couldn't do that to the little girl. She didn't do anything wrong, she deserved everything that was good in this world, and Quinn knew she wouldn't be able to provide that. And just like that, she lost the last thing that was keeping her sanity together.

She took a deep breath and felt a tear slip from the corner of her eyes. She was a masochist to revisit that part of her brain. The back of her hand swiftly wiped the tear away and she couldn't believe what she saw when she lifted her head.

By the new girl's bed, there was a desk. A perfectly even organized dressed, with a drawing kit on the top. That distracted her mind for a few seconds. Was her new roommate an artist? She kind of liked artists. The free spirit they have. And they are not as alienated as the rest of the world.

The sun hit it, throwing a streak of light in her eyes, that made all the other thoughts vanish away. She felt a small moan slipping out of her mouth as she thought what might have sent that streak.

She got up quickly, setting of the new girl, who curled up harder and started mumbling.

"Please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me"

She groaned and ignored the girl, aiming at the drawing kit. Right there. Next to some crayons. She couldn't help but smile, picking the ruler up. She came back to her bed with it on her hands, where it stood. She twirled it between her fingers. Felt the edges against her thumb. And she broke it.

She broke it, leaving a sharp edge. The new girl let out a small scream with the breaking noise but shut her mouth quickly when Quinn flashed her with one of her famous death glare. Quinn took of her sweatpants. If she did on the top of her tights no one would see it, because it would disappear in the middle of the scars she already had and the multiple stretch marks. She bit her lip in anticipation and fluttered her eyes, to see that the new girl is kneeling by her side, with her eyes focused on the half ruler.

She chose to ignore the girl. She didn't have time to waste, someone could come in any second now and her opportunity would be gone.

She slid the ruler against her skin, sighing in pleasure with the cutting sensation, but she froze instantly when she felt something on her new future scar. She opened her eyes and saw the new girl rubbing her fingers together, as if she analysed the texture of Quinn's blood. She drove her finger back to the wound and wiped away another droplet of blood. She cleaned her fingers in her shirt and then traced a circular pattern with her delicate fingers around the cut.

Quinn stayed still with her eyes open in astonishment unable to move. She held her breath and felt her lips trembling when the girl got up and ran to the bathroom.

Quinn panicked.

Was she gonna tell someone?

She couldn't.

The girl returned with a pink band-aid. She looked deeply inside Quinn's eyes, somehow asking for permission, before taking the sticker off and taping it in the wound in a agile robot-like movement, rubbing her finger on top of it to smooth the surface before leaving a kiss on top of it and looking up to face Quinn.

Quinn finally exhaled and blinked a few times holding the ruler so tight on her clenched fists that her hand started to hurt.

What had just happened?

She opened her mouth briefly a few times before letting out in a low whisper.

"Thank you"

The new girl started whimpering again and ran back to her corner, returning to the initial position, and rocking back and forth even faster than before. Quinn turned herself to look at the girl, still in shock with the quick turn out of events.

She swallow thickly in her dry mouth.

"I'm Quinn, by the way"

Quinn didn't get any response, and for a few seconds she even wondered if she had really said anything. Or maybe if the girl actually could listen to her. But she couldn't move her eyes away from the girl. She urged to help the girl the way she just had been helped, but she was still too amazed to move.

For once, after a really long time, she felt.

She felt something.

She felt that maybe, just maybe, there was hope for her, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Quinn shifted in bed, trying to find a comfortable position, but after almost ten hours of sleep on her belly, her back started to complain. She didn't want to wake up. Sleeping without dreaming was the closest to death she would ever have without actually being dead. But turning around in bed without being able to fall asleep again was starting to make her feel anxious, so she decided to put an end to the struggle.

She turned to face the wall and took a deep breath before opening her eyes. She still had hope that one day, when she opened her eyes, she would wake up to realize that all of this was just a dream. That people didn't think she was crazy. That death would be an option.

Today, was not that day.

People who feared death. They just didn't make sense to her. Okay, she got that if you were in a perfect marriage and had a perfect baby, you wouldn't want to die. If you had just got a promotion at work, you wouldn't want to die. If you had everything that you ever dreamed of... No. The feeling of having not even one dream left would probably make you wanna die. But back to the point: to someone like her, life was not something enjoyable. The prospect of getting better and having what she wanted wasn't enough, because deep down she knew about the chances of nothing ever working out.

It took a few minutes until her eyes were completely used to the brightness of the room, enhanced by the quantity of white furniture and walls. She knew she had to get up soon if she didn't want to miss breakfast again, but just like all the other days, she lacked the courage.

The door opened slowly.

Quinn furrowed her eyebrows, in curiosity. Usually the morning nurses were loud and annoying, to make sure the patients would wake up on time. Although with Quinn they were more tolerant, they had learned that this kind of treatment would not be enough to get Quinn out of bed if she didn't want to.

But they had never been this gentle and quiet. Quinn turned around to see what was going on.

"Oh, Mrs. Fabray! You're awake just in time for breakfast today!"

Quinn gave her a sarcastic smile before letting her face go blank again. But that only lasted for a second.

Where was the new roommate?

The questioning must have hit her just about the same time it hit the nurse, who went to check the bathroom. But she found it empty, and tried to stay calm.

"Mrs. Fabray?"

Quinn looked at her, her eyes filled with hatred. She was most definitely not a morning person. And people trying to maintain a conversation with her when she had _just _woken up? Not a very good idea.

"Would you mind telling me where your new roommate is?"

Quinn huffed. What made her think that Quinn knew where she was? Hadn't she seen that Quinn had _just _woken up? She shrugged and the nurse shook her head. Quinn knew how frustrating she could be, and didn't care at all.

But she couldn't deny that she was uneasy herself.

The roommate couldn't have left the room before the breakfast call because the door was locked, and the windows had bars on it. Those were the only two obvious way out.

Flushing yourself down the toilet was not an option, even for a tiny girl like her.

If that girl had found a way out in less than a day she would be offended, to say the least.

Again, the realization must have hit the nurse and her at the same time, and they both glanced at the closed door of the closet.

The nurse approached it and opened the door slowly, but the velocity didn't matter, as soon as the inside of the closet was flashed with light, the brunette girl started weeping and hid her face farther in between her crossed arms.

The nurse sighed and looked at Quinn who opened her eyes widely, as if saying that she had nothing to do with whatever made the girl do that.

The nurse shook her head again and walked to the door.

"Breakfast is served, try not to be late, _please_"

Quinn ignored her and got off the bed, walking slowly towards the closet.

The closer she got, the louder the weeping got.

She knelt on the floor and the girl started trying to scoot away, but the wall against her back made the task impossible.

"Hey, easy..."

Quinn murmured with her hands up, as a sign of peace.

"I'm not gonna hurt you"

But her words didn't have the calming effect she was hoping for. The girl started looking up, seeking a way out, and clearly panicking.

Quinn could see the fear in her eyes. And it broke her heart.

She felt trapped. Just like Quinn did. And Quinn didn't want to be the reason for that feeling.

So Quinn closed the closet door, and instantly the crying stopped. She gave a weak smile and got up.

Her morning schedule was waiting for her.

* * *

The worst part of having breakfast, is that when she was at the cafeteria she had no way of discharging the yellowish pill. And as soon as it hit her stomach, she wanted to throw up.

But she knew how things worked. If she threw up, she would have to take it again.

The dizziness was a constant. She had mentioned it when her doctor asked for feedback, wanting to know about the side effects, but when she mentioned this one, he said it was expected and that she should get used to it.

She had a feeling this was exactly what that pill was made for. When she felt dizzy like this, there was no space left in her body for the anxiety. She had to spend her time focusing on not falling while she walked, and making sure that the walls were not moving around, which left not time for trying anything.

But that wasn't what made her angry about that pill.

She didn't feel so silly anymore. When she started taking it, she would laugh for hours, at the simplest things, like how her hand looked like or how shiny the aluminium from the pans in the kitchen were. Now, the only thing she felt was the urge to throw up and the feeling of not having control of her body.

The silliness was gone, and she knew what that meant.

Her body was getting used to it. Getting used to a drug.

Ironic. Some patients got there to get rid of the dependence of drugs. She saw how hard they fought against it. She saw how destroyed their families were. Yet, she got there to get cured from "depression", and they were turning her to an addicted, just like the ones she saw.

* * *

When she got back from breakfast, the girl was still locked inside the closet.

When she got back from therapy, the girl was still locked inside the closet.

When she got back from lunch, the girl was still locked inside the closet.

Didn't she had to go to the bathroom or something? There's no way she could spend the whole day there.

Quinn bit her lip, sitting on the edge of her bed. She was disappointed. With everything that happened the night before she had hoped that her life would change dramatically now. That it would finally start getting better.

But sitting there, in the empty room was just a constant reminder of the hollowness that placed inside of her.

She hadn't talked to anyone but the hospital staff – and only when she absolutely _had _ to – in such a long time that she couldn't even remember how it felt.

She urged for some kind of contact. She had long forgotten what it felt like to be close to someone. Not physically, but emotionally. To feel like you know someone and they know you. To have someone that understands you even when you don't understand yourself. Because that's how she felt right now.

The thing is, she hated changes. She needed to feel in control to be in peace, and changes didn't make her feel that way. And by now, she had already got a fame. People didn't expect her to talk. So if she did, people would react in a way that she couldn't control. Not knowing how things would play out scared her.

She couldn't stay there any longer. She had to runaway. She needed to clear her head.

Since getting out of the institution was not an option, she had only one place she could go.

* * *

She stopped by her bedroom before dinner but nothing had changed.

She came back, and heard the door being locked on the outside. It was bedtime.

But she was not sleepy at all. She couldn't believe the girl would stay inside the closet for so long.

She opened the closet door, but the weeping didn't start as she thought it would.

Instead, she saw the tiny brunette with her arms wrapped around her legs protectively and her head resting on her knee.

Quinn chewed her lower lip. She had never seen anyone looking so vulnerable and fragile. She felt her eyes getting teary, and she couldn't even explain why.

She was sleeping, but she shivered and frowned. Quinn thought she might have been dreaming.

She knew it was against the hospital policy, but is not like she cared about those rules anyway. How could they punish her? It's not like her _situation_ could get any worse than it was.

She took a wrapping out of her coat pocket and placed it on the shelf near the girl, opening it slightly so she could see the cookies when she woke up.

The girl shivered again.

Quinn wondered if she could be waking up, but her breath got even again. Quinn couldn't stop looking. After a few seconds she saw goosebumps on the girl's arm.

Quinn got up and took the girl's blanket from her bed, bringing it to the closet, and gently placing on top of the girl before closing the door again and going to sleep.

Quinn was always trying to find explanation for things. She longed for a meaning, something that made everything make sense to her. But right now, she didn't understand her feelings, and she couldn't care less.

* * *

When Quinn got up the other day, the bed next to hers was still vacant. She sighed.

She was already in a bad mood, figuring the day wouldn't be any better, and she almost didn't see it.

Inside the trash can, next to the toilet. The napkins that previously held the cookies, with not even one crumble on it.

She couldn't help the smile that appeared on her face.

* * *

**A/N: I'm planning on updating weekly, do you guys have any preference on the day and time? Also, I'm looking for a Beta, so if you know someone, please tell me :))**

**Thank you for the reviews! **


	3. Chapter 3

That morning, on her way back to her room after breakfast, Quinn heard something that caught her attention.

A nurse and the two head doctors were by the medicine's room door, and Quinn couldn't help to over hear them.

"She's been here for almost a week now, and she still hasn't started taking her medicines. In fact, she hasn't left the room. She hasn't even eaten anything!"

Quinn gulped. The case sounded too familiar to her. She needed to stick around to hear more. She needed to know what they were gonna do.

But how could she do that without making it obvious? She couldn't just stand in the hallway because they would notice her presence and change the subject.

She looked around and found nowhere to hide.

"That doesn't sound accurate, how is she surviving? There's nothing but water in the room."

"Are you sure she hasn't gone to the cafeteria while you were away or something like that?"

Quinn chuckled. How _dumb _were those people?

Every night she left Rachel something to eat. She knew the girl must be starving, so she started to bring more and more to the room. How could they not realize it was her?

"Well if she doesn't start eating-"

He saw her.

She gave him her best hate stare. She had hopes that some day she would be able to kill people with it, but it didn't work.

She looked around again, and now she saw something she could use.

Bert. The crazy dog man. She couldn't remind how she knew his name, or how she knew how did he got there, but she did.

Since her institution was a private one, most people that came here was rather wealthy. It was not like the public ones, where people only got admitted if they had some serious, matter of life – not always theirs – disease.

Bert, for example, had imaginary dogs. He was in his forties, and he had imaginary dogs. Four of them, to be exact. And the dogs always came first in Bert's life.

His family brought him after he passed out in starvation. He hadn't eaten in days because he didn't have enough food for him and the dogs. So he fed the dogs and didn't eat anything.

It didn't matter what was his situation right now. He was exactly what Quinn needed.

"Bert! I was looking for you all over the place!"

She saw the nurse's eyes growing as wide as they could get, in a way that she could swear they were about to pop out of her face. She was surprised seeing Quinn talk to another patient.

Bert didn't seem to believe either. He looked back to make sure she was talking to him, and kept a deep frown on his face. Chances are, he had never heard her voice before that. Most of people there hadn't.

The doctor was the only one that didn't seem surprised. He could have been, but he masked it, putting on his best "I knew my treatment wouldn't fail" face. He kept talking, but lowered his voice to avoid that Quinn heard it. But she had good hearing.

"If the patient doesn't start accomplishing the basic tasks, you know what you have to do"

Quinn didn't.

Those were the doctor's last words before he flew away, with his shadow – or the other head doctor – right behind him.

They couldn't leave now! Not without explaining what they meant!

"... Did I do something?"

Bert break her trance. His voice was so little that she could barely hear it. She had to say something quickly.

"One of your dogs woke me up this morning. It just wouldn't stop barking! You better make them shut up unless you want _me _to do it."

Bert looked down and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Which one of you woke up the pretty lady?"

And with that, Quinn left. She had no longer a reason to be there, she had already got all the information she could, and it didn't help her at all. In fact, it made her more anxious, because now she couldn't stop thinking about what would they do with the girl.

* * *

It was incredible how fast _news _traveled on that institution.

"I heard you talked to another patient today, Quinn"

She shrugged.

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

"Don't act like you don't know exactly what I said"

The therapist nodded and wrote something down.

"You didn't hear any barks, Quinn"

Quinn huffed and crossed her arms. She knew she probably looked like a spoiled five years old kid.

"Now you tell me what I've heard and what I didn't?"

There was silence. For a minute Quinn thought she had won.

"You told me you are not crazy, right?"

Quinn froze. She would like to see where this was leading.

"Bert says that he is crazy. He _knows _he is the only one who sees, or hears his dogs. It took him a lot of time but now he's realized it. And he is getting better each day."

Quinn looked away. She always feared people would read the truth in her eyes.

"If you heard it... You are crazy, Quinn"

She groaned. That fucking woman knew right where she could pick to set Quinn off.

"I'm not crazy"

She snapped. The therapist nodded.

"I know you are not"

Quinn didn't say anything else. She knew that if she did, she would be lead until telling her reasons for talking to Bert.

* * *

As soon as she stepped out of the therapist's office she heard loud screams. She prayed that it didn't come from her room, but deep down, she knew it did.

She bit her lip and walked faster than her usual, until she was sprinting down the hallway.

"You are not allowed to run in here!"

She heard someone yell, but she didn't even bother to look back and check who it was. She just wanted to go to her room and find out what was happening.

"You have to take your medicines or we're gonna have to put you in an I.V treatment, Mrs. Berry"

She was finally close enough to the door to hear what was happening, and when she opened it, she found three nurses struggling to give the roommate her pills.

Two held her. One holding each arm, while the other tried to shove the pills inside the girl's mouth, who just cried, biting her lips closed and trying to escape from the other women.

"Hey!" Quinn screamed, and the main nurse looked back to her.

"Mrs. Fabray, this is not a good time."

The girl's eyes met Quinn's. Quinn could see the girl pleading to be let go.

"Get off her! Now!"

She yelled and tried to push the nurses away, but they didn't move.

"Mrs. Fabray calm down! Unless you want us to calm you down!"

She took a deep breath.

"Why are you doing this to her?!"

Quinn tried to stay calm but her heart was beating fast and she felt the urge to scream.

"She has to take her medications!"

Quinn laughed ironically.

"And you can't think of any other way of doing that?"

"She doesn't leave this fuc- this closet not even to eat! She is not taking them!"

Now they were both yelling.

"Why am I even discussing this with you? These are doctors orders, we have to follow them! It doesn't matter what _you _think."

Quinn breathed in again and nodded before releasing the air.

"Can you- Can you just let go of her? Just let her go, please."

The two nurses looked for the one holding the pills, seeking for approval. She nodded with a deep sigh and just by the time the girl was free she fell to the floor, crawling her way to the corner and curling up in a ball.

"We tried to talk to her but it's like she doesn't understand our language! She needs to come out of this room, she needs to eat!"

Quinn shook her head.

"She doesn't need to leave the room to eat."

"You know the rules, Quinn."

"Those rules are shit, why can't she eat in here?"

Quinn's voice got louder again. She looked down and realized that her hands were shaking. She breathed again. She had to calm down, or else she wouldn't be taken seriously.

The nurse started to whisper.

"The socialization is a part of the treatment!"

Quinn shook her head one more time.

"Clearly she is not ready to take that step. Why do you need to rush it? Just bring her food here already!"

The nurse was still not convinced, but she pursued her lips and Quinn knew that she had planted the seed of doubt in her head. She was considering it. Quinn just had to talk a little more.

"Bring her food. She'll eat. She'll take her meds. With time, she will start to feel better. _Then _you can try and get her out of the room."

"How do you know she will take her medicines?"

Quinn looked back to the girl. Even though her whole body was wrapped up, her eyes were still on them. Quinn knew she was listening. She knew she understood.

"We will never know if we don't try. But she will, I assure you."

"It's not that easy, Mrs. Fabray. I still have to check with the doctors."

She said before leaving the door, followed by the other nurses.

Quinn sighed and gave the girl a sympathetic smile, but she hid her face and started whimpering lowly.

She wanted to kneel on the floor and wrap her arms around the girl. She wanted to tell her everything would be fine. She wanted to tell her no one would hurt her, because she wouldn't allow.

But she just lied on her bed and watched the girl cry.

* * *

Quinn got no replies from the staff, but they didn't come back to bother them again that day, and Quinn took that as a positive response.

The other day started just like the others. Rachel back in the closet, napkins on the trash. The routine eased Quinn's anxiety.

"So... What happened yesterday, Quinn?"

Quinn said nothing.

"Mhm. Some said you were quite eloquent yesterday. What happened to that?"

Quinn said nothing again.

"I'm guessing you like your new roommate?"

Quinn shrugged.

"It was very nice of you to do that. To stand up for her when she couldn't stand up for herself."

Quinn looked down. She felt shy.

"You know, I talk to the other doctors."

Well, now she got Quinn's attention.

"Maybe if you talked to me... Explained your point... Maybe I could try and help you with that situation?"

Quinn licked her lip and opened her mouth a few times before being able to formulate the phrase to come out exactly the way she wanted.

"They were trying to force the medicines on her"

The therapist nodded and, of course, wrote it down.

"And you tried to show a better solution?"

"Precisely."

"Why do you feel so protective over her, Quinn?"

She frowned.

"I don't."

The therapist shook her head.

"You didn't care about your other roommates. But you care about this one. I can see it"

Quinn could see it too. But she didn't understand why. Of course, the girl helped her and she was trying to pay back, but now it felt like more than that.

"I can see it in your eyes. I can see it in your body. The way you were sitting, the way you moved: it all changed when I mentioned her."

Well now she was overreacting. Quinn worried about the girl, but not _that_ deeply. The questioning did made her unease, though.

"Why?"

"You tell me"

"I don't know" Quinn whispered.

"I think you are doing to her what you wish someone had done for you. You wished someone had helped you when you were going through your _troubles. _You wish someone had showed you another way to deal with it."

Her voice got lower.

"You wished someone had protected you."

Quinn stood still, her mind being flashed with the memories of the lonely nights, crying alone in her bedroom and trying to think of a way of telling her parents about what was happening. Her hand involuntarily flew to rest on her belly, and she felt her heart aching when she remembered that what she was looking for was no longer there.

"Maybe that's something for you to think about tonight. We can talk more about it tomorrow."

She hated that look in her therapist's eyes. That look of accomplishment, that look that said she finally got Quinn to talk, she finally got Quinn to think.

* * *

When Quinn got back to her room that night she found a tray with an empty plate and glass on top of it, and the smile that spread on her face made her muscles hurt.

She heard the click on the door that told her it was time to go to bed.

She was about to lay down when she found a tiny piece of paper rolled on the top of her pillow. It was smaller than her pinky's finger nail.

She unrolled it carefully and in the light blue paper, the dark blue ink read:

"Thank you"

She looked back to the closet door and smiled again.

That night, she slept with the shred of paper inside her closed fist, pressed against her chest.

But when she woke up in the morning and found out that the sweat of her hand had made the ink on the paper get blurry and the message impossible to read, she felt a tear slip from the corner of her eyes.

And she wondered why did she care so much.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **A special thanks to my beta Charlotte Windsor! Thank you so much for all the help.

* * *

Quinn decided to try and get closer to the girl. But she didn't know how to do it without scaring her.

Since the smallest action seemed to make the girl retreat into her shell, she assumed that going slowly was probably the only way she could succeed.

So that's what she did.

She started by simply replying to the note she received the night before. She cut a small piece of paper and wrote "Any time" on it, with a smiley face on the end of the sentence, and slipped it inside the closet.

She could tell that the girl saw it, because of the way she moved abruptly, making the closet door open slightly. Quinn could imagine her flinching in surprise when she saw something coming in what she thought was a safe place. She closed door and quietly moved away.

* * *

Quinn was always alert to even the minimal change in her room. And on the last few days, a lot of changes had happened.

One night, Quinn noticed a damp towel on the bathroom. Looking around more carefully, she noticed that the girl's drawing kit was settled under the table, instead of being on top of it as it usual. Her bed was not perfectly neat as always either.

Connecting the small evidence, she realized that while she was out, the girl must have been leaving the closet. She felt free to do the things she liked or needed. So Quinn tried to avoid her room the most that she could, to give the girl a little space.

But one day, she got cold during the afternoon and ran to her room to get a sweater.

When she got in, she was caught by a humming coming from the bathroom, muffled by the sound of water but still audible. It was low, and it sounded so painful, but it reached deep down inside her.

It took a while, but she recognized it. Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker. Waltz of The Flowers.

She felt her heart flipping inside her chest. There weren't many people that stopped to listen to classic music nowadays, and to find someone that appreciated her favorite song was just... overwhelming, in a way.

She sat on the edge of the bed and closed her eyes, enjoying the melody. It's been a while since she first heard it, but she remembered like it was just yesterday.

She wasn't alone by then.

Hearing classic music inside the womb made babies grow up to do well in math.

She read that in a random magazine of her mom one day.

Well, that's something she wished for her baby. She didn't really knew if that was true, but she figured it wouldn't hurt to give it try, and she didn't regret at all. Once she started hearing it, she just couldn't stop.

While regular music made her stop to think about them, or what their lyrics meant, hearing the classic music was like opening a huge window on her mind, allowing it to get flashed with everything that the world had to show.

And most importantly, it felt like a escape. And it was just what she needed back then, and even now too.

She caught herself humming along, but her eyes shot open when the water noise stopped.

The roommate was done with the shower. Quinn got up in a jump and grabbed the first sweater she could find before sprinting out of the room.

* * *

"Good morning girls! Rise and shine!"

Quinn groaned. Why did they have to wake up so early? Is not like she had anything to do all day.

"Mrs. Berry? You have visitors today!"

Quinn gulped. She didn't even know they could have visitors. No one ever visited her. But she wasn't jealous. No. She didn't need anyone.

Still, she was curious. She moved slightly to see past the nurse.

Two men. A taller one, with glasses resting on the top of his nose and slightly gray hair, holding a smaller one, that tried to hold in his sobs, covering his mouth with his hands.

Her roommate didn't move. Quinn wasn't sure if she was awake or not, or even if she had heard it from there.

The taller man gave the smaller one a kiss on his forehead before letting go of him and walking to the closet.

Quinn wondered if he knew that she was there because that was a habit of hers or if someone had told him before he got in the room.

He opened the door, but the girl didn't whimper or cry like she always did. Instead she flew to his arms, clinging to his body like her life depended on it.

"Dad! Daddy! Dad!" She whispered while hugging him so tight that Quinn thought she must have been hurting him.

The smaller man could no longer hold in his tears, and just threw himself in a hug with the other man and the girl.

"Please, take me home!"

So she knew how to talk. Better yet, how to formulate phrases. Quinn always knew the girl could understand them.

"We can't baby girl, not yet..."

The taller man whispered back, while rubbing her back reassuringly.

"You're here to get better. You will go home soon. We believe in you. We believe you will get better soon."

It was the smaller one now, talking through sobs. She could feel the difference in their voices. The taller one was unsure of their decision. His voice hovered on the end of the sentence, and his eyes wandered around the room.

Quinn noticed that even with everything that was happening in front of them, the nurse's eyes wouldn't leave her. And that's when she felt a tear slipping down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly with the back of her palm and furrowed her eyebrows, trying to prevent others from falling, but it was not that easy.

She could see how much they loved her. She could see how much they missed her. And even though she hurt that no one felt anything similar towards her, that wasn't the reason why she cried.

She cried feeling herself in the place of the roommates parents. The feeling of seeing everything fall out and not being able to move a feather to put everything back in its place. The feeling of knowing that the hard way sometimes was the only way. She could relate.

But she wished the girl didn't have to go through this. She wish there was an easier way out.

"I'll be better, I promise I will, just please take me with you..."

Her voice was louder than usual, and she begged with so much passion that Quinn knew someone had taken her place of the one who hated the institution the most.

At the same time, the supplication for help made her hurt deeper. She wished she could be the one to help her heal from whatever wounds she had acquired.

The men looked at the nurse. They didn't know how to respond to that. The nurse just shook her head and they seemed to understand what she meant.

Quinn understood too. They couldn't let her try to talk them to do what she wanted.

"Do you like your new desk, sweet pea?"

She shook her head. Her lips never falling from the perfect pout, her head never looking up.

"What about your bedroom?"

The other one tried, but she shook her head once more.

"And the food?"

Another shake.

They knew she didn't mean it. They knew the stuff wasn't bad, and that she was just trying to go home.

The smaller one finally looked up to check out the room, but his eyes met Quinn's watery ones before she quickly looked away.

"What about your roommate?"

Rachel didn't move. She didn't nod, but she was far from shaking her head.

Both men looked up at Quinn again, and the taller one smiled.

"Well, I'm glad you're making friends."

Quinn smiled too. She wish they were already friends.

_Friends._

* * *

The next morning, Quinn was determined to cheer up her roommate.

It was heart breaking seeing her parents leaving her for a second time, and even though Quinn hid on the bathroom and covered her ears trying not hear the girl's pleading, it was useless. It had so much pain in it that she could feel the screams transcending through her hands and getting right inside her soul.

She was already up and ready to leave the room when the nurse unlocked the door, but instead of marching to the cafeteria like all the other patients did every single morning, she went to the music room.

It took her a lot of convincing to get the security guard to let her bring the keyboard to her room.

The day before, she had spent hours at the library. She got in line to use the computer, she _tolerated _everyone that tried to engage in a conversation with her and after the _whole_ day she found the sheet music.

The whole night she spent practicing, and now she finally felt ready.

She grabbed everything and avoided the weird looks she got while bringing the stuff to her room.

It took her a while to set the keyboard up, but when she eventually got it, she started playing. And everything else blurred away.

She had taken piano lessons as a child but she had absolutely loathed them back then. It was just another way that her parents used her, showed her off as a show puppy. They put the piano in the living room, and they would have a _small_ get together every weekend where she would play for the whole evening while all the grown ups watched her and envied the talent that their kids didn't have.

But right now, her feelings were the completely opposite. She felt confident, she _wanted _to play.

She let her digits feel every key before pressing them gently, and let the music spread in to the room.

Waltz of the Flowers again, of course. She knew the girl would recognize it.

What she didn't expect was the audience that quickly formed behind her door. She could hear them whispering about what was going on. But they didn't matter to her. She had a purpose now.

And right when she finished, she saw a piece of paper being slipped out of the closet. She knelt to get it and smiled.

Another thank you note.

And immediately all the struggling, all the efforts, felt worth it.

"You're welcome"

She whispered, before packing everything up and leaving, looking down to hide her blushed cheeks as she passed three nurses that promptly begin to clap at her.

* * *

Quinn couldn't sleep. Even though she had taken the sleeping pill, just like every night, she couldn't sleep.

Her mind was racing on how everything was working out. She had set it as a mission now, and it gave her something to think about.

That was good, because it kept her mind free of the _bad _thoughts, but on the other hand, she had so many things to think now that she just couldn't stop.

She tried not to move too much in bed, because she didn't know how much noise the closet door blocked and she didn't wanna bother the girl, but she just couldn't sleep at all.

She was almost ready to give up and call the nurse office to ask for another pill when she heard a whisper.

"Goodnight, Quinn"

She gulped. Her lower lip quivered, and she had to bite it to stop it. It was like the girl knew just what she needed. Just like the night when she stopped Quinn from cutting. She gave Quinn's mind peace.

She wondered if she had lost her opportunity to reply after being in silence with her thoughts for a few seconds, but she assumed that if she didn't reply, she wouldn't get another chance so soon.

"Goodnight..."

Quinn realized she didn't know the girl's name. And she didn't know so many other things.

But she had time, and she was determined to learn everything she could.

"You know, you never told me your name"

Quinn never heard anything back, but she didn't care. She knew the chances of it happening were remote, but it didn't matter.

Now she was sure that she would sleep and that it was gonna be a good night.


	5. Chapter 5

Quinn always came back to brush her teeth after lunch and took the opportunity to check if her roommate had eaten her food, what she could tell by the situation of the tray sitting on her desk. She worried about the girl's health more than she would like to admit.

That day, she hadn't eaten. Well, at least not enough. Quinn could see that she had played around with the food, but most of it was still on the plate, just like the juice on her cup. It was the first day that she hadn't eaten since they started bringing food to their bedroom and Quinn wondered if everything was okay, but she knew that asking wouldn't make a difference, since she wouldn't get an answer.

She sighed. At least the girl had taken her medicine. She was doing so well and Quinn felt a strange pride because of it. The girl clearly had some serious trust issues, but she took her medicine without question because she really wanted to get better. She was stronger than Quinn. She let her pride take a back seat for the sake of getting better, which was something Quinn was quite sure she could never do.

Quinn wanted her to get better and stop suffering from whatever she had, but at the same time, the thought of getting another roommate scared her. Her therapist was right, she had never cared for any of them in the way she did for this girl. She felt an urge to protect her, like it was her mission. She didn't really believe in destiny and stuff like that, at least not anymore, but maybe she was meant to meet this girl there.

Quinn's mind was racing as brushed her teeth, thinking about how it would be if the roommate left. She quickly flossed, rinsed her mouth with mouthwash and rinsed it again; all while avoiding her own reflection in the mirror. Everything she did felt automatic, her mind being focused on more important things.

Still distracted, she almost didn't realize that the closet door was half opened as she walked out. She couldn't remember if it was like that when she first got in, but she thought it was very unlikely.

Had she come back too early and unknowingly forced the girl into the closet, not even giving her enough time to close the door? She lowered her body to try and see inside the closet, and was surprised when she met the other girl's glaze.

Quinn blinked. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what the boundaries were, and that made it all too easy to step out of them.

So she just smiled. And she was shocked when she got a smile back. It was weak, and still scared, but it was definitely a smile. Quinn was elated, but not wanting to scare the girl she kept her voice quiet.

"Do you... Do you want me to close the door for you?" She whispered.

The girl shook her head. Quinn furrowed her eyebrows slightly, confused. She wasn't sure of what the girl wanted, but when she looked behind her and saw the full plate behind her, she got an idea of what it might have been.

"Do you wanna eat? Did I interrupt you?"

She shook her head again, and gave another smile after it. Quinn let out a nervous laugh.

"Okay well... I'm... I'm gonna stop bothering you now"

Quinn left, and leaned against the bedroom door after she closed it.

She had to leave. She was nervous and too self-conscious of everything. Even though that smile made her happier than she had been in a while, it also made her feel too vulnerable which ultimately made her even more nervous.

She was aware of her heart beats. She could hear them.

And they were _so_ fast.

* * *

The goodnight wishes started to become a habit and before long Quinn couldn't sleep without hearing those simple words.

It reminded her of when she was little.

Every day, before going to sleep, she would go to her parents room to get a blessing from her dad, and then walk hand in hand with her mom to her room, where they would kneel on the floor and pray together.

They thanked for the day they had. Everything they had in general. And sometimes, when Quinn was really good during the week, her mom would let her ask _him _for something that she wanted. She didn't understand who _him _was, and why couldn't they meet _him, _and how could _he _know what they said if _he _wasn't in her room, but every time that she started questioning her mom cut her off, so eventually she just stopped.

For her, the worst kind of punishment wasn't getting grounded or having her toys taken away. She could always get distracted with something else. The worst punishment, was when her parents gave her the silent treatment, and didn't follow their nightly ritual. Every time that happened, she wouldn't sleep. Or worse, she would cry herself to sleep, and then beg for forgiveness.

She returned to the present as thoughts from the other day came back to her. The girl will get better and it might be soon. She would have to go to sleep without her goodnights again.

She shivered and felt her eyes getting watery.

But all of her fears faded away when she hear that lulling, soft tone of voice.

"Goodnight, Quinn"

* * *

Quinn needed to get in the room. She had convinced her doctor to take another look at her prescription, and she was fairly sure that she would get him to take her off the yellowish pill. But she needed to take her chart for him to check.

And it was there, right by her bed.

She stood by the door for a few minutes, hesitating. She didn't want to make the girl uncomfortable with her sudden presence. She opened it slowly and went in, but froze at what she saw.

Her roommate sleeping - but not in the closet – in her very own bed!

Quinn chewed her inner cheek but couldn't hold the huge smile that appeared on her face.

She took a few steps closer, but felt her heart racing faster with each one she took.

It was the first time she could actually see the girl, without the darkness of the closet, her arms getting in front of her face, or being buried in her father's chest.

And what she saw took her breath away.

Her eyelashes sat on the top of her flushed cheeks, with a well-drawn jaw under them. Her dark brown hair fell perfectly around her face, and her bangs were a bit too long, almost covering her shut eyes. Her nose was big and with a round tip, and Quinn had to stifle a giggle imaging how cute it would look when scrunched it up in a grin.

Quinn couldn't help but to lift her hand and brush said bangs aside, to see her better. When the girl didn't react in any way, she let the tip of her index finger travel down the girl's nose, and stopped when she got on the corner of the girl's lip.

Soft.

She could feel the girl's breath, and noticed it had changed. It wasn't as constant as before, and Quinn knew she must have woken up.

She put herself in the place of the girl, thinking how she would feel if someone she barely knew touched her while she was asleep.

She had gone too far. She knew she shouldn't have touched the girl. She felt so guilty. Like she had abused the little trust the girl had for her. She could have taken the girl's lack of reaction as a form of approval of her acts, but instead she imagined that the girl just didn't move because she was too scared to.

And she felt so sad for being the reason for the girl's sadness.

Quinn grabbed her chart and ran to see her doctor, but she just wasn't in the mood to discuss anymore. Even still, she got herself a deal. She would take two new pills instead of the yellow one, but the doctor promised her they would have no side effects and that they wouldn't get her hooked. Quinn settled for that.

* * *

Quinn woke up that night to the sound of crying. She had gotten used to it by now, it came out of nowhere and left just the same way, but it still made Quinn nervous, mainly because it served as a reminder of the suffering the girl was going through.

There was nothing different in the room, what could have caused it? Quinn wondered if there was something inside the closet that was setting the girl off. She could look and take whatever it was away, but she didn't have a chance to approach the closet because the girl was always there when she was around.

She must have been dreaming, Quinn thought. Most of the weeping happened at night, so it made sense. She could wake up her, but that could scare her even further.

The girl must have been shaking violently; Quinn could see the closet door moving and it doubled her concern. It looked like today was worse than the usual. The girl's cries were louder and more painful.

She got up and walked to the closet, placing her hand on the door.

"Hey?"

She breathed out. The weeping got even louder, almost turning to a wail, and the door shook harder with the girl stirring in her sleep.

Quinn took that as a signal that the girl had heard her, even if only unconsciously. Deep down, she was hearing Quinn, and it was affecting her.

She felt like her voice made the girl feel worse. Maybe she was remembering of when Quinn touched her the other day and that was coming back to haunt her at night.

Quinn hated herself so much for that. She knew she was over thinking everything, but it felt like she had no control over her mind. If she wasn't so focused on the girl's pain, she would most definitely channel it to relieve the hate by hurting herself. Even now, it sounded tempting. She deserved it. But the door just continued to shake against her hand, and she couldn't ignore it.

"Are you okay?"

She asked, even though she know the girl wasn't. She wasn't either. But there was nothing else she could do. There was no way she could help, and no way of going back in time to prevent herself from touching her.

"Please, be okay..."

She whispered. Quinn wanted to soothe the girl, but she didn't know how.

So Quinn simply stood there, with her hand against the door.

And for the first time in a really long time, she prayed.

* * *

Quinn got to her room after dinner, carrying the cookies in her pocket, just like every other day, but when she opened the door, poking her head inside, she was surprised by the girl sitting on her bed.

Quinn thought quickly, remembering the fiasco of the last time she got a surprise like that, and figured that if the girl was anything like her, acknowledging the change wouldn't be a smart choice. Maybe if she just acted normally, everything would feel normal.

She started walking again and left the cookies at the girl's desk.

"Hey."

Quinn whispered before going to her own bed, and laying there. But the curiosity was killing her, she had to turn to face the girl.

Her action was welcomed with a smile. And God, she loved those smiles. Maybe the girl wasn't scared of her after all. The relief in Quinn's mind made her sigh contently, and she felt like the whole world was taken out of her back. Her smile matched the happiness that flood her heart with that realization.

"I'm Rachel"

The girl said. Her voice was muffled by the emotions, shaky – she must have been so nervous, she must have played this out in her head so many times before taking the courage to actually say it.

Quinn could feel her mouth falling open and her eyes opening wider, but she did her best to regain her composure and reward the daring action with a bright smile.

"It's nice to meet you, Rachel!"

She replied excitedly. More excited than she wanted to sound, actually.

The girl nodded. She stood still, staring at Quinn for a few minutes. Quinn didn't know what to do or say, but the silence didn't feel as awkward as one would imagine. Her eyes were locked with the girl's, and it felt like they could say everything with those looks, and the other would understand them completely.

After a while, the girl broke the glance, and Quinn realized she was holding her breath for a really long time. While she exhaled, she saw the girl getting up, grabbing the cookies and tucking herself inside the closet, after giving Quinn one last smile.

Quinn shook her head and laughed silently, still breathing heavily.

For someone who hated changes in her routine, she was liking all of that too much.

* * *

**A/N: **Again, a huge thanks for my Beta, Charlotte Windsor!


	6. Chapter 6

Quinn was almost done with her shower when she heard the girl starting to cry. It was always the same; starting with tiny whimpers and escalating until she was crying so hard that she couldn't hold herself still.

For Quinn to be able to hear it, even with the noise of the water and two doors between them, it had to be pretty bad already.

She clenched her hands in fists trying to keep herself focused on what she was doing, but like a mother hearing her baby cry, she just couldn't ignore it. She turned off the shower and put her clothes on in a flash, not even bothering to comb her wet hair.

When she got out of the bathroom, she could swear her heart had broken to a million little pieces. The door was half opened again, and the girl stared right in her eyes and they looked so hopeless. She was asking Quinn for help. This was Quinn's opportunity to give back what the girl had done for her. But she had no idea how.

Rachel's eyes were puffy and red, her bangs stuck to her forehead because of all the sweat that ran down her face. Mixed with the incessantly tears, and her whole body shook, almost as bad as the people Quinn had seen having a seizure.

In spite of her shaking body, Rachel slowly poked her hand outside of the closet door, trying to reach Quinn – without ever looking away from her eyes.

Quinn came closer to the closet and knelt on the floor. She was going to lift her hand to touch the door, like she had been doing lately – she felt closer to Rachel this way, she felt like she was helping. But Rachel prevented her from doing just that when she grabbed Quinn's index finger and held it with her whole hand.

Quinn gulped, but didn't move. If that's what the girl needed, she could have it. She could have all of Quinn's fingers and she still wouldn't mind. She felt Rachel gripping tighter as the sobs wracked her body.

She looked down for the first time since Quinn had come out of the bathroom and shut her eyes, shaking her head and murmuring some things that Quinn couldn't quite make out, even when she came closer. She assumed the girl didn't want her to hear it, and distracted her mind with her prays.

She wasn't sure if her prayers had worked or if the episode was going away naturally, but leisurely her shakes got weaker and weaker until fading away completely. She took some deep breathes, trying to regain some composure. Finally she let out a few weak hiccuping sobs and opened her eyes to stare into Quinn's.

She gave Quinn a weak smile, which was interrupted by another hiccup, but Quinn smiled back anyway. The little hiccup was adorable. Her finger was still inside the girl's fist, but she could see that Rachel still wasn't ready to let go of it, so she sat down, showing the girl that she could take her time: Quinn would wait there forever if it would make her feel better.

And indeed it did. Quinn saw when Rachel's eyes started to get heavy, and realized how the grip was loosening before the girl actually fell asleep. But Quinn still didn't move; she stayed still until Rachel's hand fell, setting Quinn's finger free.

Quinn gently put Rachel's arm over her knees, inside the closet, and closed the door slowly.

When she knew everything was okay, and that Rachel wouldn't need her anymore, she ran to the bathroom.

And as soon as she make to the bathroom, she threw up. She hold herself on the edges of the toilet and just let it happen, but while it happened, Quinn could feel her tears washing her face.

What she had just watched was terrifying – the fear in the girl's eyes, the way she lost control over her own body, how unbelievably fast her breathing was – and she considered herself lucky for being able to hold herself together for so long, to only break down when she reached the bathroom and was alone.

She woke up on the bathroom floor when one of the nurses entered the room yelling at her for missing her appointment with the psychologist. The last thing she needed was to hear the nurse's lecture right now, but she couldn't escape it, just like she couldn't escape the fact that she would have to take her medications all over again.

But when she remembered why she did it, she didn't feel like complaining anymore.

And before leaving the room, she heard a small thank you coming out of the closet.

The fact that the girl had enough courage to speak to her out loud instead of slipping out of one the notes, like she did before, made Quinn feel invincible. She could do anything if she knew she would get a reward like this.

Every last Friday of the month, they celebrated birthdays at the institution. They got everyone together that was born in that month, and had one big party, that lasted for the whole day. They had cakes. They had balloons. They had soda. They had birthday games. The staff tried their best to make each person feel special at least on that day, to make them feel safe and at home.

But Quinn always avoided the cafeteria on that day. She hated how happy everyone seemed. She didn't understand why people celebrated being alive. And she hated how kind everyone was to the ones who were getting older. It just seemed fake to her.

But today, she had to go. If she stayed in the room, the girl wouldn't come out to eat and take her medicines. She went, but chose a seat as far away as possible from the party, and stayed there for just over twenty minutes, before heading back to her room holding the present she brought back for Rachel.

Placing the cupcake and flower by the closet door, she knocked gently and left the room before she could get a response.

She spent the rest of the day in the music room. There was no one else there since just about everyone was at the party, and that was the best thing that could happen, in her opinion.

She turned the volume up as loud as the speakers would go, and lay on the floor, facing the ceiling. She didn't have her own CDs so she relied on the ones that other patients had brought. They didn't have the best taste ever, but there were a couple ones that she learned to like.

She liked to listen to the songs and just think. She liked to hear the songs and _not _think. She liked to fly wherever the song would lead her.

But now, she didn't want to stop there. She wanted to go further, explore more. After playing for the girl, she had grown fonder of the instruments and since she couldn't spend time in her room, she started going there more and more each day.

She listened to the songs on replay for a few times, and then tried to play them, without consulting sheets music or anything; using just her memory of how they had sounded. And she was getting better at it.

Quinn almost dropped the guitar she was playing when one of the nurses bustled into the room and turned the speakers off.

It was time to go to bed, and the day had gone by much better than she expected.

Quinn was tucked under her blankets; eyes wide open, just waiting for her goodnight wish.

She heard the girl moving inside the closet, and thought she must have been trying to get comfortable in there, which was surely impossible.

She wanted to tell the girl to go to her bed. That it was okay. That she wouldn't bother her. That no one would get inside the locked room. That they were safe there.

But as soon as the noise stopped, the voice came.

"Happy birthday, Quinn"

Quinn choked, her eyes bulged out and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. How could she know that? It was just impossible. She literally never talked – to anyone – so how did she find out? She coughed a few times before managing to actually talk again.

"Thank you"

Quinn whispered back, holding her hands together to stop the shaking and closing her eyes tight. The whole day she tried to avoid those wishes that annoyed her so much, but right now, annoyance was the last thing on her mind.

She could feel the truth in those words. She knew the girl meant it, she didn't just say it to be polite, like everyone else did.

Someone actually wanted her to be happy. It seemed unbelievable to her.

"Goodnight, Quinn"

She smiled with her eyes still closed, picturing the girl, all curled up inside the closet. The image made her uneasy, but not in a bad way. She wanted to hug the girl. She was just so happy to know that someone cared about her in a sincere way.

But she hugged her legs instead.

"Goodnight, Rachel."

Quinn was finishing getting dressed when the door opened abruptly. She grabbed the sheets that lied on her bed and covered herself as she finished putting in her shirt.

"Excuse me! No one taught you how to knock?"

She groaned and looked behind her when she was ready, rolling her eyes when she saw the psychologist standing by the opened door.

"Wow. Just because I missed an appointment this week, doesn't mean you need to come to my room and get me, you know"

She groaned, and the psychologist let out a small laughing, shaking her head.

"You are very self-centered. Who says I'm here to talk to you, Mrs. Fabray?"

Quinn frowned for a moment, but then figured what the doctor was trying to say and gasped.

"What are you doing here? She won't talk to you!"

She never talked to anyone, only Quinn, only sometimes. Quinn was proud of that. Everyone knew that. The psychologist knew that – Quinn had told her. Then why was she there?

"Well, we'll see. Can you excuse us?"

Quinn huffed and crossed her arms, sitting on her bed and making it clear that she didn't plan on leaving any time soon.

"No"

The psychologist wasn't laughing anymore, and the always gentle – fake – smile she always carried had faded away from her face. But Quinn didn't let her expression flicker; she needed to show that she meant it.

"You would rather have me calling the guards to help me take her to my office?"

Quinn groaned again and stomped her foot before leaving the room. She felt childish, but she hated to lose arguments.

"And you're not allowed to stay by the door either, _Quinn_"

She was bluffing, Quinn thought. She just had to stay really quiet and she would hear everything.

"Quinn!"

She smashed her fist against the door and yelled.

"I hate this place!"

But she regretted it immediately, thinking of how that could have scared Rachel, and gave up, leaving the hall and heading to the music room, to clear her head.

Quinn rolled on bed once more. She couldn't stop thinking of how the talk between Rachel and the psychologist had gone. She even tried to ask her during her own appointment, but the psychologist adamant – something about doctor/patient confidentiality. Quinn got angry and didn't talk for the whole hour, even though she knew that acting like that wouldn't get her anywhere.

She wanted to ask Rachel, but she didn't have the courage. She felt like she was overstepping – actually, she knew she was – but it had been long since she had lost control over her mind. She wanted to know if the girl had opened up, she wanted to know if she had been scared, she wanted to know everything.

"Quinn?"

Quinn's head snapped back to look at the closet, and she found the closed door. She frowned. It stiill amazed her how perfect the girl's timing was; she always knew when Quinn needed to hear her voice. But that's not the usual goodnight she gets.

"Yeah?" She asked curiously.

"I can't sleep."

Her voice was so small. Like a children's one, when they've broken something and they _know_ they have to tell their parents, but they are afraid of the consequences. Like someone confessing one of theirs darkest sins. But that's not how she should feel, at least not about something so innocent.

Quinn got up and walked to the closet, sitting next to the door.

"It's okay"

She murmured, but she knew the girl would realize that she had walked towards her.

"Why don't you try to sleep in your bed today?"

Quinn suggested, although she didn't really think it would work. She had a pretty good idea of what had happened: the psychologist had pushed her too far and made her anxious. That seems to be the way they worked there – they did it with Quinn too, on her first appointment – they push you, and they try to get you anxious and scared so you will open up and start talking until you feel better.

But it didn't work with Quinn, and clearly it didn't work with Rachel either.

Rachel didn't answer Quinn's question. She understood that the girl was not ready for that step yet, and she didn't want to be like all the others; she didn't want to push Rachel. So she dropped it, and changed subject.

She looked around and her eyes fell in her nightstand, giving her an idea.

"Maybe- Maybe I could read something for you?"

She asked expectantly. The silence spread across the room again, and Quinn pursued her lips. She didn't know what else she could do.

"Okay."

The answer took a little long to get there, but when it did Quinn was relieved. She stretched her arms to get the book without moving from her spot.

"Okay"

She murmured to herself as she sat with the book on her lap, leaning against the closet door and opening where she had stopped reading. She took a deep breath and started reading, with a calm tone of voice.

"_She never knew daylight could be so violent, but one day she woke up in a rainy morning and the sun was in grief. The black clouds hid the blue sky from her sight, and one more time she cried. The moon, the stars, and the sun cried as well, as they watched her pain._"

Quinn moistened the point of her fingertip and turned the page silently.

"_But for him, who would cry? Who will see him, when the clouds that spread in the sky come from his heart? She rises, she leaps. But she gets stuck in the clouds on her way to the moon. Like a waltz, she dances with her memories, and having the song of his voice as the music playing on the background, she skips, star from star; and the planets align behind her, because they too want to see._"

She stopped to take another breath and to wipe away a shy tear that was caught in the corner of her eye. She liked subjective books, because she felt like each person could find a meaning behind the words and everyone would somehow relate to them; but she remembered now why she had stopped reading this one. It touched her too deeply.

"_And they too hoped that one day she'll be her own moon, her own star and her own sun. And it will be enough._"

She reads the last sentence in a murmur and closes the book, bringing it close to her chest and hugging it tight while another tear escaped from her eyes. All the curiosity that was once in her mind immediately left, leaving the sadness and anxiety that she feared so much.

"Goodnight, Quinn"

But Rachel's voice was much calmer now. And if she had made the girl feel better, why would her feelings matter?

* * *

**A/N: **Wow, this was the longest chapter so far! I'm not sure if you guys understood how Quinn related to the book, so if you didn't just tell me and I'll explain to you!

And like always, I would like to thank my Beta, Charlotte Windsor.

I hope all of you have a Happy New Year!


	7. Chapter 7

"Goodnight, Quinn"

Quinn smiled and closed her eyes, shifting in bed to get herself comfortable.

"Goodnight, Rachel"

It wouldn't take long for Quinn to fall asleep that night. She'd had a stressful day; once in a while they ran some tests to check the patient's progress, or to see how they were dealing with medication, and today Quinn had spent the whole day in the lab.

She wasn't alone there, but not even one of the other patients had the courage to tell the doctor that in the five seconds he turned his back to them, Quinn had hidden a few needles under her clothes.

To know that they were there and that if she needed she could use them to cut herself, was already enough to make her so calm that she could sleep through the whole night without even needing her sleeping pills.

Of course, the needles weren't as sharp and easy to cut as the blades that she had hidden in her bedroom back home. But unfortunately she couldn't hide them in her backpack when she came here, and she was aware that she wouldn't find anything as good as those, so the needles were enough.

She was already sleeping in that light, dreamy way when she heard the closet door opening. The noise woke her up and she looked back quickly, afraid something had happened. When she saw Rachel getting up and out of the closet she tried to look away, figuring the girl was probably going to the bathroom and didn't need or want an audience for that.

But the girl stared fixedly at her bed and slowly moved her feet, closing her eyes tight and taking one deep sigh – the bed wasn't more than five feet away from her, but Quinn understood what a long walk that would be, and how hard it was for the girl to take that few, yet meaningful, steps.

It startled her: just a few days ago the girl refused when Quinn suggested to her that she should try to come out, but now she seemed absolutely sure that she was ready for it. Quinn thought it might have had something to do with the therapy sections the girl was now having, and even though she was a little bit jealous to admit that someone else had helped Rachel, she was happy that she was being helped somehow.

Rachel didn't open her eyes while she got under the sheets, and she let out a shaky sigh when she finally got comfortable there. It was obviously much better than the small closet, and when Quinn thought she had finally fell asleep she opened her eyes and smiled to her. Quinn was already smiling, but it got brighter, and filled with pride.

"I did it!"

She whispered with a shy smile, looking down.

Quinn giggled and nodded.

"You did it. Congratulations!"

Quinn could see that she had got even shyer with the compliment, so she closed her eyes, letting the whole room for the girl.

"Goodnight, Rachel."

"Goodnight, Quinn"

* * *

When Quinn woke up and turned around to see the sunshine streaming across Rachel's sleeping face, she wished she could just stay there laying on her bed and watching it all day long. She looked serene, and Quinn was happy for her; it was the first night in a long time that had went by without any crying.

But Quinn had to go. She didn't know what was going to happen when the girl woke up: she could either change her life completely and start doing everything like everyone, or she could just return to her normal habits, and only leave the closet during the nights. Either way, it was better if Quinn wasn't there, leaving her with the room to make any decisions she wanted.

Besides, Quinn had to see her psychologist. If she kept missing her appointments like that she would lose some of the few privileges she still had.

* * *

"Are you gonna talk today, Quinn?"

The psychologist asked. Quinn hated everything, from the tone of her voice to her little attitude, acting like she knew that Quinn would have to talk at some point.

"I don't know. Are you gonna tell me what I wanna know?"

She laughed. Quinn was _so _close from jumping out of chair and getting on top of that damn woman. She could think of so many ways to kill her. Or at least hurt her a little bit. She deserved it; no one should push a patient like that.

"Why do you feel like you need know that, Quinn? Why does it bother you so badly?"

Quinn rolled her eyes and buried herself further on the chair with a loud groan, to make sure that the therapist saw how annoyed she was.

"I think that you feel that way bec-"

"I don't wanna know what you think. I don't care."

She wrote something down and nodded with her lips tightly closed. Quinn hated that pen. She could use it to stab her on the neck; there were some important veins or something like that there, right? She was almost sure that this was a way of killing people.

"You know that there are other ways of getting to know what you wanna know, right?"

Quinn's eyes lit up and she lifted her head from the doctor's notebook. Why hadn't she thought of that before?

"You can ask _her._"

No. That's not what Quinn had in mind.

She was sure that if Rachel had said anything, the therapist would have written it down. But even better: Quinn could find Rachel's files, and find out not only what she said, but everything about her, everything that she had wondered lately: who Rachel was, where had she come from, and most importantly, why had she come there?

"Can I be excused?"

"What?"

The psychologist frowned.

Quinn swallowed thickly, the ideas running like crazy inside her head wouldn't let her focus or pay attention at what the therapist was saying, so she figured it would be better to just leave and use her time to plan a way of getting inside the director's office and finally finding out what she wanted.

* * *

Quinn opened her bedroom door slowly – she imagined she would find the girl by her bed, or drawing in her desk, or even watching TV – doing normal stuff. But there was no sight of her, and when Quinn saw the closet door half opened she knew the girl had come back inside.

Disappointed wasn't exactly the word, but she was rather frustrated to know that everything the girl had fought to conquer was blown away just from hearing the noises of the uproar that took place on their wing that morning.

Quinn had spent most of the previous days sitting on her bed and trying to sort through everything that was in her mind, but she just couldn't find a way of working up a plan that she was sure that would work, so she eventually gave up.

But the perfect opportunity was basically knocking at her door: she wasn't sure of how it had started, but right now she could hear the loud screams coming from out of her door and meeting the terrified nurses who needed help from the guards to calm down the patients.

It didn't have to be anything major to cause this kind of chaos. Everything, from someone crying about their medicine to someone who didn't like the food of the day could set one patient off, and if one patient started screaming most of the others would mimic the act and in a few seconds the whole floor would be out of control.

Quinn didn't recognize the nurse that was sitting behind the table next to the principal's door, and that made her task even easier. She had learned how to understand the nurses there, and like everything, the way they behaved fell in to a pattern: the new nurses were either afraid of the patients or thought they were dumb, but mostly they were easy to fool.

Quinn convinced one of the patients to make the nurse leave her spot by asking her for help to get a _lost _patient out of their room, and it worked like a charm: in a question of seconds she was alone in the hall, except for the people who were so lost in themselves that didn't even see her, and after that, getting inside the office was as simple as it could be.

The first thing she saw when she got inside was exactly what she was looking for. The dark wood furniture, filled with the files separated alphabetically. Quinn almost didn't believe when she realized that there was not even one little locker there; it was so easy it that it was almost like they were asking for it.

She ran her fingers through the letters and stopped on the Q; she was curious to know what the psychologist wrote about her, but she figured she didn't have much time, and she had set her priorities straight. If everything worked out she could come back another day and check hers, but now, she was going to learn more about Rachel.

R.

There weren't a lot of files in that category and she soon found what she was looking for.

Rachel B. Berry.

She held the file with both her hands and lifted it up, chewing her lips nervously. It was happening. Everything she urged to know, every mystery that haunted her mind was going to be solved right now.

But when the image of Rachel's eyes came in her mind, Quinn remembered how the girl seemed to trust her even though everything she did showed that she was built of fears and pain; and Quinn knew she wouldn't be able to ever ruin that trust.

She imagined hearing Rachel's history by the girl's own lips. She could see the girl's eyes shining when she told about the happy moments, but getting darker as the story also got more complicated. And she could feel how they would bond through it; baring their souls and opening themselves to the other one.

Quinn wanted that. She realized there was no better way of learning about someone's life than hearing from their own mouth.

So she shoved the file inside the drawer and got out of the door, running to her room with her heart racing.

When she got back in her room she heard Rachel's light whimpers coming from inside the closet.

And even though nothing had changed, Quinn felt closer to Rachel than she ever had before.

* * *

When Quinn came back from dinner, Rachel was already tucked under the sheets with the same coy smile on her face. Quinn smiled, went to the bathroom, and got ready to sleep quicker than ever, jumping to bed and turning to face Rachel.

"Hi"

Quinn murmured. Rachel didn't answer, but looked deep inside Quinn's eyes, with such an intense glaze that made the girl shiver. Quinn didn't usually like eye contact, but with Rachel it felt different. It was like the girl was tryinig to know her by studying her eyes, and it worked; for once in a long time Quinn felt like someone understood her.

They kept their eyes locked for as long as they could, but their exhaustion started to kick in and made Rachel's eyes heavy. Quinn didn't want to break the contact, but she hadn't got many chances to watch the girl sleep and she was enjoying that new possibility.

"Goodnight, Rachel"

Rachel smiled lightly and hugged the pillow tighter. Quinn didn't even realize that she did the same thing, but she wished she had someone to hold her like that while she slept. She wished she was in the place of that pillow.

"Goodnight, Quinn." Said Rachel.

But it wasn't a good night at all.

Not a long time after Quinn finally gave in and fell asleep, she woke up hearing the girl's weak whimper. She bit her lip before turning on bed, and jumped out of it when she didn't see the girl in her own bed.

Quinn walked to the closet and by the gap of the open door she saw Rachel with her face buried in her legs, trying to muffle her noises to not wake Quinn up. When she looked up and realized Quinn was standing next to her again, she stopped rocking herself back and forth and held out her hand, hoping she could get Quinn's.

But watching that trembling lip and shaky hands coming in her direction, Quinn wanted to do more. She knew that she was helping Rachel by only letting her hold her hand, but she also knew she could help her much more if she wasn't so afraid of scaring her.

She gulped and took Rachel's hand before crawling inside the closet with the girl.

It was small. It barely fit the two of them; their bodies were flushed together, pressed against the other. Rachel's eyes were big, but she didn't look afraid of Quinn like the girl expect; she only confused, or maybe unsure of what was happening – but Quinn got the confidence she needed from those big brown eyes.

She wrapped her arms around Rachel, like she had been wanting to do in so long, and it felt exactly the way she imagined. Comfortable, safe; so tight that Quinn could barely tell where her body stopped and Rachel's started. But melted into each other, she felt nothing but calmness. No fears, no worries. Just feeling the two heart beats against their chests.

But she realized Rachel had stopped breathing with the sudden action and was almost letting go afraid she had scared the girl, that the girl didn't feel the way she did, when Rachel relaxed in to Quinn's embrace and started crying lowly again.

Quinn hugged her even tighter and started rocking lightly back and forth, like she knew the girl used to do. The girl shook against her body and buried her face in Quinn's shoulder, and Quinn ran her fingers up and down her arm, trying to sooth her.

"It's okay. You're okay now. You'll be fine..." Quinn cooed her.

The girl sobs got worse before getting better, and when they finally stopped Quinn could feel the fabric of her shirt wet from the girl's tears and felt their heart beats, almost in sync now. Rachel looked up at her and Quinn gave her a sympathetic smile.

Rachel blinked, letting out the last tear and then turned around to hug Quinn back with all the strength that was left in her small arms.

Quinn understood that this was the girl's way of thanking her and murmured back a you're welcome, before leaning her body against the closet's door and holding the girl against her, feeling the girl's chest rise and fall against her own, until they both fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Quinn woke up again, and took Rachel's arms away from her before slipping out of the closet, preventing the madness that would happen if the nurses came in to the room and didn't find anyone from happening.

But before she left, she knelt and dropped one soft kiss on the top of the girl's head, and whispered.

"Please... Please be okay."

She took a piece of paper from the girl desk, and with a pink crayon she wrote a note, so the girl didn't felt abandoned when she woke up. With her best calligraphy she wrote "Today will be a better day." and added a smiley face and a little heart on the end of it.

She wasn't used to being the strong one, the steady one. But for Rachel she could be anything. And it worried her how many feelings she was developing for someone with whom she hadn't exchanged more than a few words.

But even if the worries just got bigger and never left her mind, she knew it was already too late; she couldn't stop caring and trying to help Rachel anymore.

And thinking of where all of that could lead them to, made her shake.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm sorry it took me so long to update, those first weeks of the year sure flew by and I had very little time to write, but I'll try to organize myself better to keep the updates more regular. I hope you all had wonderful holidays, and I would like to thank my beta Charlotte Windsor for helping me so much, Tarrien for sharing her inspiring story and helping me with the little details, and everyone that reviewed! You guys rock, thank you!


	8. Chapter 8

Quinn woke up feeling well rested, which she hadn't in a long time. She fluttered her eyes open and smiled; Rachel was asleep on her own bed, safe and sound. Her hair was a mess all over her face and there was drool on her pillowcase.

None of that mattered to Quinn, because she knew what it meant – Rachel had slept the whole night in her bed again, without waking up scared and running back to the closet. The whole thing gave Quinn a feeling that it was going to be a nice day.

After breakfast she went to the music room, and even though she wasn't the only one there, she ignored the others and played anyway. She felt light, she was in such a good mood that she didn't care about anyone else; she felt like nothing could bring her down.

When her fingers started to hurt from playing the guitar, she dropped it beside her. She felt rushed; she couldn't stop moving and her mind was running even faster.

In a second, she realized what was going on. Some of her medicines were changed during her last check up. She hadn't put up a fight against it like she always did, because the last change – one yellow pill for two pink ones – had been effective. But now she remembered why she used to be so angry about those pills on the first place.

She didn't felt like herself. But she wasn't sure about how she felt about that either.

* * *

Quinn opened the bedroom door, and her breath got caught in her chest when she saw Rachel sitting on her bed wearing a light dress, a cardigan, flat shoes and her bangs pinned to the side.

Since Rachel never left the room, Quinn never had seen the girl in anything but comfortable clothes or her sleepwear. She stood by the door for a few seconds with her mouth slight opened, but only realized that she was blatantly staring when Rachel looked down with her cheeks turning pink.

"You look great!" Quinn encouraged the girl, closing the door behind her and sitting on her own bed. She didn't understand what all of that was for, but the answer came quickly.

"I wanna eat outside today" Rachel murmured, still looking down.

Quinn was almost sure she had squealed when she heard it. She was about to jump out of bed, but collected herself and simply nodded with a bright smile.

"Okay. Are you ready to go?" The girl nodded. "Okay. Let's go then!"

While one of Quinn's hands moved to get the door knob, the other was caught by Rachel's. She was surprised, but turned around and greeted the act with a smile and nod, trying to help the girl with the last little push she needed.

She took a second to adjust to the feeling; Rachel's hand felt so small against hers, and she held it so tight that Quinn knew how important her company was.

Quinn twisted the door knob and Rachel followed her out, hiding behind her back and using Quinn as a shield for anything they might face on the way. The hallway was empty though, so Quinn looked behind her and tighten the grip on their hands, which made Rachel look up to her.

After lifting her head and realizing they were alone, she felt more comfortable walking at Quinn's side. They walked slowly. Quinn was aware that Rachel must haven't got a chance to get to know the institution, since she had such a _difficult _moving day. So she took the opportunity to show Rachel the things that were in their way to the cafeteria: bedrooms, the nurse's office, the director's office, other bedrooms, the TV room.

And even though Rachel's hands betrayed her, letting Quinn know how nervous the girl was by seeing how sweaty her hands were, Rachel did her best to remain calm and pay attention to everything that she was being told, nodding to everything she was shown.

Rachel must have realized it even faster than Quinn, since she was the one to tighten the grip this time – a man wandering around in the middle of their way.

Rachel came closer to Quinn, bumping their arms together and loosening her hair from behind her ears to fall in front of her face. She was unease, she was trying to become somehow invisible. But there was no reason for that; Quinn wouldn't let the man approach her anyway. He wouldn't have the courage, or at least not after Quinn glared him with so much hate in her eyes.

"Hey." Rachel's head snapped up to realize that Quinn was talking to her. "It's okay" She murmured with a smile, motioning with her head to show Rachel that the man was now behind them. Rachel let out a small sigh and smiled. "You're doing great." Quinn encouraged, but the girl didn't motion to move further away from Quinn – not that Quinn minded; all she wanted was for Rachel to feel comfortable.

* * *

When they got there, almost all the patients were already sitting and eating. Quinn heard a low whimper coming from the girl's mouth when she saw how many people there were, but they had come too far only to give up now.

"Do you wanna sit and wait while I grab food for us?" She turned her head to murmur so only Rachel would hear her, and almost got lost in the scent of the girl's hair, but was brought back to reality when Rachel shot her eyes wide open and shook her head. She wasn't ready to be left alone in such a crowded room. "It's okay, it's okay." Quinn eased her with a smile. "You come with me, then."

She placed two trays on the counter, and managed to align them so when she pushed one the other moved too, since Rachel didn't seem to be willing to let go of her hand.

The lunch lady held a big spoon full of pasta and Quinn nodded. Rachel held her eyes down, avoiding eye contact, but Quinn ran her thumb against the back of the girl's hand, trying to show her that they were waiting to see if she wanted pasta too, and she nodded. And that repeated in every stop, until their plates were full.

Quinn let Rachel take her time, so when a lady sighed in line behind them, it took all of Quinn's good will not to flip that tray and hit the woman's face with it. The lady must have felt it on Quinn's face, because she immediately shut up, and Quinn was able to move on and finish the task, grabbing one apple for each one of them.

But Rachel poked Quinn's arms, and Quinn looked up, confused, until she saw Rachel's eyes moving to catch a glimpse of the cookies. For a moment Quinn had forgotten about how much Rachel liked those.

When they were done, Quinn turned to murmur to Rachel again. "Can you pick up your tray?" She saw the girl's eyes flickering nervously, but she let go of Quinn's hand and picked it up, holding it firmly and doing her best to make sure she didn't drop it in the way.

Quinn picked up her own tray with only one hand, and used the other arm to wrap Rachel's shoulder protectively as they walked to the nearest table, and she could see that her action were effective when Rachel smiled and walked with much more confidence than before. She loved this; feeling like she was protecting Rachel, knowing the girl felt safe under her embrace.

She put her tray down on the table and helped Rachel with hers before pulling the chair, like the good gentlewoman she was, so Rachel could sit down and then moved to sit down across the table, in front of her roommate.

None of them moved for a minute; Quinn waited for Rachel to start eating so she would too, but after a while she realized the girl must have been feeling uncomfortable with Quinn watching her. So Quinn took the first step and filled her spoon, taking it to her mouth and chewing, while waiting for Rachel to do the same.

Rachel looked down at her plate intensively, and held the spoon tight in her clenched fists. Quinn had already eaten half of her lunch when she finally moved and tried to get the food on the spoon. But it was hard. Everyone is used to having a knife to help push the food on spoon, and trying to do so without said knife was making the food fall off from her plate, and it made her more anxious as she tried.

Quinn cleared her throat, getting the girl attention, and then motioned with her head to her own tray, which had more food on it then in the actual plate. "Look around" Quinn murmured, even though she knew the girl wouldn't. "No one is looking. No one cares."

But Quinn knew Rachel wasn't totally convinced yet, so she took a big chunk of chicken in her hands and shoved it in her mouth. While she was on it, all she could think about was how her mother would have a heart attack seeing her eating _gracefully _like that.

It made Rachel laugh though, and that laugh was followed by a sigh that made Rachel close her eyes before lifting the spoon to her mouth. Quinn smiled proudly nodding when Rachel's eyes opened again.

Spoon by spoon, Rachel grew more brave, not caring about everyone around them, and Quinn could swear half way through lunch the girl had already started lifting her eyes to peek around and see what other patients were like, what they were doing, or what they were talking about. She looked like a curious little puppy, and Quinn bit her lip holding back sighs of admiration.

It had been a while since the two of them were finished eating when Rachel turned to find Quinn's eyes and that look alone was enough for Quinn to understand that the girl was telling her she was ready to leave.

She got up and placed Rachel's tray on top of hers, before walking around the table and holding her hand out for Rachel, who didn't hesitate on grabbing it before getting up and following Quinn to put the trays back on the counter and leave.

* * *

On their way back to their room, Quinn thought about taking an alternative way, to show Rachel the other wing of the institution, but she thought Rachel had already made progress enough for one day and chose to only guide the girl back to their room.

Rachel sighed deeply in content when they got inside the room and Quinn smiled, congratulating her. She stood by the door while Rachel looked around, as if thinking of what do next before deciding to just sit on her bed.

Quinn smiled again, and was turning around to get out and leave the room for Rachel when she heard the small voice.

"Where are you going?" She whispered, with eyes that flickered from curiosity to fear.

Quinn shrugged. "I don't know, nowhere?" She bit her lip. She didn't have any place to be, she just had assumed that Rachel liked being alone, so she left for most of the day.

"Can you stay here with me?" Her voice was even smaller, and Quinn imagined how many days had she wanted to ask that but didn't have the courage, and damned herself for not realizing it before.

"Of course I can!" She answered with smile, walking to sit on her bed. Rachel layed down and closed her eyes, and Quinn assumed that the girl only wanted her company, to know that someone else was there after such an overwhelming day, and if that's what she needed, Quinn was happy to help.

* * *

Quinn started to hang more in her room now that she knew that Rachel liked having her around. Her get away now consisted mostly of going out to get her meals – with Rachel by her side, to go to see her psychologist, or to walking Rachel to her own therapy sessions, for after Rachel started coming out to eat the psychologist refused to do the sessions in their room.

But buried deep inside of her there was always that weird feeling of anxiety, like a child who gets too excited about something and just can't turn it off and ends up doing everything in a rush because they just can't bear to waste time.

"How are you feeling Quinn?"

The urge to kill her psychologist was just one of the other things she also had to bury deep inside her. She was _almost _sure that killing her would get at least another whole year inside that institution and she really wanted to go out.

She shrugged.

"How was lunch today?"

She had to stop herself from almost opening up. It always happened when she was asked something related to Rachel; she wanted to share with someone how cute the girl was, or how adorable she looked when she blew on her straw today during lunch and then giggled at the bubbles that appeared on the surface of her orange juice. Just Rachel's company itself was enough to make those everyday mundane moments the best experiences she had ever had.

She wondered if Rachel talked about her on her sessions.

"It was okay."

Nods. She was getting tired of those nods. When she was little and people asked what super power she wished she had, she had always asked to fly – it would be a way of running away from all the pressure her parents trusted upon her even during childhood, but if they asked her now, she would most sure ask for a power to read people's minds. It would make everything much easier.

"You are feeling better."

It was a statement, not a question.

"No, I'm not." She frowned.

Yes, she was.

A few months back she wouldn't have lasted a day without cutting if she had the weapons she needed, and now two weeks had passed and the needles she stole were still hidden in the back of her drawer.

She was talking more. She was smiling more. And deep down, she knew that the feeling that was bothering her so much was actually happiness. She wasn't used to feeling that way, and she didn't know how to handle it, or what to do with all of that.

And she didn't want to like feeling that way, but it felt like she couldn't help it.

"Why don't you allow yourself to feel happy? Don't you feel like you deserve it?"

She wondered if her face just made what she was thinking too obvious, or if the therapist was actually good enough to get that without Quinn saying anything.

But she stopped to think about it, and it made a lot of sense. She didn't deserve that happiness. She had done so many bad things; She let her parents down, she wasn't a good daughter, she wasn't a good friend... and she was a terrible mother.

Even with all those facts, that's not why the happiness felt weird. She wouldn't mind being happy if there was an actual reason for it, but she _hated _knowing that this was just another way of fooling her body; that all of that just came because of those medicines she was taking.

She was lying to her body, she was lying to herself. She was doing what she found to be the most disgusting action in the world. She wasn't happy and she had no reason to make her body feel otherwise.

And when the session was over, she had made a decision: she wouldn't take her medicines anymore.

* * *

**A/N: **Big thanks to my Beta Charlotte Windsor!


	9. Chapter 9

Quinn had almost swallowed her medicines when she remembered she had decided to stop taking them. It was just a habit now; she wouldn't even think about it when she pushed them down her throat with a huge glass of water, to help her to ignore the awful taste they had.

Luckily, she was able to hold them behind her teeth before they slipped on her throat, and even more luckily, the nurse paid almost no attention to her opened mouth; Quinn had been behaving better lately so they were going much easier on her.

She spit them in to the nearby toilet and flushed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and letting out a groan of disgust just from the faint taste that was left behind.

Since each pill worked in a way, she had no idea which one of them was making her feel uncomfortable. She didn't had the patience to check them one by one and find out which one it was, so she decided to stop taking all of them. However, she also didn't know how much time it would take for the medication to be completely out of her system, which made it harder to tell if what she was feeling was really a feeling or just an effect of the medicine.

The only she didn't stop taking was the night one that everyone took before going to sleep. She knew she was addicted to it because she could never sleep without taking it. She despised the way the institution got them hooked on those medications, but she figured that she would have to fight one battle at a time, and this one would have to wait.

But if there is something she had mastered early in life, it was the art of acting. So when she got out of the bathroom with a big smile on her face, she was just sure that no one would ever find out what she had been doing in there.

* * *

Rachel had been sleeping much better now that she had left the closet for good. She still woke up crying on some nights, but it had been happening less and less as the time progressed.

Still, that didn't change the fact that Rachel always slept right through breakfast, and woke up almost in time for lunch. Quinn figured maybe her sleeping pills were stronger, as a way of trying to get her to sleep through her "nightmares" or whatever it is that she had.

But since the day Rachel asked Quinn not to leave the room, she could always rely on having her roommate there when she woke up. Quinn was simply obsessed with how adorable it was to see Rachel waking up after a good night of sleep.

"Good morning!"

Quinn cheered watching Rachel blinking a few times and trying to rub the sleepiness out of her eyes before stretching out her arms and yawning.

"Good morning."

She was answered with a shy smile. Quinn wasn't sure about how Rachel felt about all of that, or even if Rachel knew that she was being watched, but annoyance seemed to be one emotion that was never behind her eyes so Quinn never bothered to change her new habit.

"Is it lunch time yet?"

Rachel asked without even raising her head up from the pillow, in that husky sleepy voice that made Quinn tingle. But Quinn just giggled and shook her head.

"Someone woke up hungry today, huh?"

Rachel shrugged and closed her eyes again, sighing with a smile still on her face.

They have been talking much more now that they're always together. Rachel wasn't as shy as she used to be, and sometimes even tried to start a new conversation when one of those deep silences fell upon the room. Those conversation starters make Quinn feel much better, working as a way of assuring her that she is not overwhelming Rachel by trying to get her to talk all the time; Quinn could see that the girl really liked talking to her.

In fact, she seemed to like to talk a lot and Quinn felt like she could go hours and hours just listening to the girl. But that day hasn't come yet; for now she is more than content with the feel words they exchange as the day goes by.

"I hope they have cookies today."

Quinn snorts. She almost thought that Rachel had fallen back asleep when she opened her eyes with a big smile and said that.

"Did you _dream_ about food?"

"No..." But the pink that flushed her face made Quinn think otherwise.

"They're gonna have cookies today" said Quinn, lying back on bed and closing her eyes, as a way of making them stop leering at Rachel.

"How do you know?" Rachel whispered, as if they were trading one of the world's biggest secret, and the curiosity on her voice made Quinn have to bite back a smile.

"I just do."

Quinn figured it would be nicer to let the girl imagining how Quinn knew this kind of stuff instead of just telling her that she had memorized the days they made them because she needed to know how long those intervals were so she could have spare cookies saved to drop at Rachel's closet at night when she still slept there.

* * *

It hadn't been a long time since they came back from lunch. Rachel munched on her cookies, doing her best to keep crumbles off her bed, while Quinn tried to read in her bed, which was actually just a way of pretending she was doing something other than stare at Rachel.

"I'm bored."

Quinn quirked one eyebrow up and looked at Rachel, who nodded at her, as if trying to make it clear that she was serious. Quinn sat up and dropped her book on her lap, drumming her fingers on top of it.

"Okay. So what do you wanna do?"

Rachel shrugged, looking away. Quinn pursued her lips, trying to think of something. She figured Rachel had something on her mind but was too shy to tell her what it was. Quinn would have to try and find out.

"Why don't you draw?"

She asked, motioning with her head to the girl's desk. Rachel frowned and shook her head. Quinn knew this was a long shot, the girl must be tired of doing so, since it's the only option she had inside the room. And then Quinn mind's clicked: she probably wanted to go outside the room!

"What if we go to the music-"

"I can't get out." Rachel shook her head with her eyes wide. She must have read the confusion on Quinn's face because she quickly tried to explain. "I just don't feel ready..."

Quinn shook the curiosity out of her face and promptly soothed the girl.

"It's okay. We can do a lot of things in here, like, hm..."

But her mind was blank again. She knew it had to be something they could do in there but she just didn't have any ideas and felt absolutely lost without a hint of what Rachel wanted to do. After what if felt like an eternity her mind was finally painted with an idea she thought could be effective.

"Why don't we have a movie night?"

She questioned excitedly, but Rachel's eyes grew unsure, borderline suspicious.

"What do you mean by a movie night?"

"Well, we could grab the DVD player of the TV room and use our TV, even though it is a kind of small. We could choose a good movie, grab some extra cookies and milk from dinner, and just watch it in here!"

Quinn could see that Rachel was considering the idea, and the cookies surely made it even more appealing, but she still didn't seem as certain as Quinn thought she would be.

"Are we allowed to bring all that stuff to our room?" She frowned.

No, they weren't.

"Of course we are!" Quinn huffed. She had brought a whole keyboard to their room, nothing would stop her of bringing what they needed for the movie night. "You can just wait in here while I grab them okay?"

Rachel's face finally broke into a smile and she nodded; she had bought Quinn's idea, and now Quinn was worrying, thinking of what would happen if she couldn't bring everything she promised.

* * *

Just a few minutes before dinner, Quinn knocked lightly on the door to let Rachel know she was there before opening it and pushing in a cleaning cart, covered with an old sheet. She put her index finger in front of her mouth, telling Rachel to be quiet when the girl motioned to give an excited squeal, and closed the door behind her with a heavy sigh of someone who was really afraid of being caught.

She wasn't exactly cautious, anyone who had seen her would have asked what she was bringing, regardless of the cover she tried to put over everything. But she liked the effect it had when she pulled the sheets, like a magician, and the DVD player and plate of cookies appeared, making Rachel giggle and clap her hands.

"I couldn't get the milk though." She pouted. "I guess we're just gonna have to drink tap water."

"Water is fine." Rachel nodded with a smile, bringing herself to sit on the edge of the bed and watch as Quinn connected the cables to turn on the DVD player. "What are we watching?"

"The Beauty and the Beast?" Quinn frowned, unsure. She had spent a lot of time deciding the movie. She knew thriller or horror weren't an option, and she ended up picking a Disney movie, but now she was afraid Rachel would judge her or see her as to childish for that decision.

But Rachel opened a big smile.

"I love that movie!"

"Great!" Quinn exclaimed, much more relieved, and started moving her bed to put it against the wall, so they could use it as a couch.

She inserted the movie on the player, filled two plastic glasses with water and sat on the bed with the plate of cookies.

"Aren't you coming?" She smiled to Rachel and the girl hesitated for a few seconds before giving in and walking to sit next to Quinn.

As the movie went on, the plate of cookies went empty, and Quinn moved it to the nightstand. And suddenly she realized the gap between her and Rachel.

They both sat with their backs against the wall, and it wasn't exactly comfortable, but none of them had the guts to move closer. Quinn kept looking down to Rachel's hands as they careless played with her sheets, and she really wanted to join her but she didn't have an excuse like all the other times she got close to Rachel. It would make her too vulnerable in case the girl rejected her move, so she simply didn't move at all.

More awkward than that was when the tiny letters started to go up in the screen. The movie was over, but Rachel seemed so lost in her own world that she didn't move. Quinn stared at her subtly, and saw her gaze lost in the air, making Quinn totally lost in what she should do next.

"Rachel?" She whispered, and the girl's head snapped back at her, with her eyes wide open as if she had just seen a ghost. "Are you okay?"

And with that, it was like Rachel's trance was broken. She nodded lightly and looked around. Realizing that the movie was gone, she got up from Quinn's bed and tucked herself on her own, curling up in fetal position and closing her eyes tight.

Quinn silently pushed her bed back in to its original place, while cursing herself. She didn't know what had happened to Rachel, but she was almost positive it was a consequence of something she did, being it either the movie she picked or the way she was completely frozen while watching it.

She tried not to think so hard about it though, and lay on her bed after turning off the TV. But she couldn't ignore Rachel's light whimpers, and the noise that the bed made when the girl shook.

"Quinn?"

And she would never, ever, ignore that sweet voice calling her name.

"Yeah?"

When she turned around, she saw Rachel with her scared eyes open, looking right in her direction. Quinn could see that she was trying to say something, but was struggling with her confidence to say it. But after a deep breath, it finally came in a tiny whisper.

"Can you lay here with me?"

Quinn's heart stopped for a mili second, but she promptly jumped out of her bed and walked to Rachel's. This was her ideal situation: she would get exactly what she was wanting, but she didn't have to ask for it nor put herself out there to deal with a possible no – like Rachel had just done. And how she admired the girl for that.

"You're so brave..." Quinn whispered, mostly to herself, but she was sure Rachel had heard, because the girl who was simply laying by her side scoot closer and layed her head on Quinn's shoulder, wrapping her arms around her waist and gripping on her arm as if the moment she let go the world would end.

Because maybe that's just how she felt, Quinn figured. She was so shocked with the sudden action that she froze for a second, but once she took a deep breath and relaxed, she ran her hand up and down on Rachel's back, trying to soothe her and feeling her tears wetting her clothes while she broke on sobs.

Quinn felt so confused. Only she could be the reason for Rachel's breakdowns, because there was no one else in the room, and nothing else that could do that to her – but if she was the reason for them, why would Rachel call her for help?

When Quinn realized, Rachel was already asleep. Her breath was even again, and she had moved, with her face buried on Quinn's neck and her arm wrapped around it. Quinn didn't know how she hadn't realized before, but now there was nothing more distracting to her than Rachel's hot breath right against her skin. She tried to prevent her goose bumps but they soon rose on her arms and she could only hope that Rachel wouldn't notice.

It was all too much. She was tense, and she knew it wasn't right for her to feel that way about someone who wasn't even awake. So she moved, trying to slowly move the girl away so she could go back to her bad. But Rachel tightened the grip and whispered tearfully.

"Please, don't go."

Quinn gulped, and moved her hand from Rachel's back to her hair, caressing it and turning her head to get a little bit more of that dazzling smell.

"I'm not going anywhere." She whispered back, and finally relaxed, allowing her body to fall asleep in Rachel's arms.

* * *

**A/N: **Again, sorry for taking so long to update. Just know that it doesn't matter how long it takes, there's always gonna be an update; I don't plan on abandoning this story any time soon. And thanks to my awesome Beta Charlotte Windsor!


	10. Chapter 10

Rachel got out of the psychologist and Quinn, who waited for her right by the door, stood up and offered a hand to walk the girl back to her room.

"Quinn! You're next, why don't you come in?"

Quinn looked over her shoulder to the smiling therapist holding the door open, and then to Rachel who was biting her lip and with her eyes pleading that Quinn wouldn't leave her all alone there.

"No. I'm going to walk Rachel back."

"Come on, Quinn. She can go by herself, right Rachel?"

Quinn felt Rachel's hand shivering against her own.

"Don't pressure her. She doesn't want to, and I don't mind going with her."

"She doesn't want, or you don't want to?"

Quinn fell silent for a moment. She liked walking Rachel around. The fact that Rachel needed her gave her a sense of purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. But what if Rachel didn't need her, and she was just seeing things wrong?

"Do you want to go alone?" She asked in a murmur, so that only Rachel would hear her. The girl gripped Quinn's hand tightly, shaking her head slightly. The therapist was messing with their minds, but Quinn was smart enough to realize it in time.

"No, I'm going with her." She said with one last huff, before disappearing on the hall.

* * *

"Do you have something you want to talk about today, Quinn?"

Quinn shook her head. She would just rather not be there at all. She had always hated therapy, but right now with her mood swings being as crazy as they were since she stopped taking the medicines, tolerating that woman seemed even harder.

"Then why don't we talk a little bit about your favorite subject?"

Quinn frowned and gulped. Of course she knew what the psychologist was talking about, but she didn't want to admit it.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't?" She quirked her eyebrow up. "Yes, you do. Rachel!"

She said with an exaggerated smile that made Quinn want to rip her insides out. She felt like she was being mocked, or worse, that the woman was mocking Rachel. But her curiosity was bigger, and she had a little flame of hope that pushed her to ask.

"What about her?"

The psychologist's smile spread, satisfied that Quinn was getting in her game. Quinn took a deep breath, trying to control herself better.

"Have you noticed how she is feeling better?"

Quinn hadn't stopped to think about it yet, but now that it was brought up, she could say that she saw it. Rachel left the room almost five times per day - counting the meals and her appointments - didn't sleep in her closet any more, was talking and smiling much more often than before... Quinn wanted to believe she was the reason for all of that, but she wasn't that sure. She wished she was, but she knew that the bigger part of the progress had happened because of the medicines.

"I don't understand why you are telling me this."

Quinn asked with the deep frown frozen on her face.

"I just wanted to know if you realized. If you notice how good it feels to get better."

Well but this was definitely not what she expected.

She wanted Rachel to get better and get out of there, because even though she barely knew anything about her history, she was sure that there was something waiting for her on the outside. Rachel was captivating and energetic. She could do whatever she wanted; she could have whoever she fancied. Quinn hoped everything in her life would go exactly as she planned when she was just a little girl, because Rachel deserved it.

But for her, however, there was nothing. If she managed to come out of there, she wouldn't have a place to go, she wouldn't have people waiting for her, and she wouldn't have a future to look forward to. It's not that she wanted to stay in the institution, she absolutely loathed the place. That's why she was so fond of the idea of dying. She didn't belong anywhere, there was no reason to stay in here and keep bothering other people. She could just spare everyone's time.

* * *

It doesn't matter how hard Quinn tried, she just couldn't get that thought out of her mind. It reminded her of the old days, when she would get so obsessed with the idea of killing herself that she would plan every tiny detail of it, and even write a letter for when her body was found.

She didn't come this far this time, but she was very close to it. Every single thing that her eyes laid on was a new of idea of how to do it. Everything people said felt like just another motivation.

Every breath felt heavier and more difficult.

But what hurt the most, was the moment Rachel realized it.

"Did you enjoy dinner tonight?" She was sitting on her bed, brushing her hair while Quinn pretended to read a book to avoid conversation. Maybe Rachel felt that, because her voice was incredibly small when she said it.

Quinn didn't even bother to answer; she just shrugged and kept running her eyes over the page.

"I think the cookies were especially good today." Rachel nodded to herself, putting the brush aside and laying on her bed. Quinn just nodded along, not even realizing how this lack of response could hurt Rachel.

"You're quiet today..." Rachel sounded even smaller. Quinn knew Rachel wouldn't give up so soon, and since someone had to, it might as well be her. She dropped her book on her nightstand and turned to lie on her side, facing Rachel.

It was nice that Rachel could read her eyes. Quinn struggled to let them show everything she was feeling, but the moment she blinked and opened them raw, with everything that she was keeping inside of her; Rachel stopped talking and just kept staring, as if she understood. And they laid there, soaking up each other's glaze until Rachel's eyelids started getting heavier.

Quinn wanted to walk there and lay with Rachel again. She wanted to curl up against the girl, snuggle to her side and have her wrapping her arms so tightly around Quinn that all the bad feelings would just be pushed away from her.

To feel Rachel's breath close to her, and count her heartbeats as a way of getting her mind busy.

But Rachel didn't invite her today, and she couldn't invade the girl's bed. Of course, she could ask for it herself, but she was too proud to admit to Rachel why she needed it. She couldn't find the words to say that if she didn't have someone holding her, she wouldn't be able to hold herself together.

At the second she saw Rachel's breathe getting even and she knew the girl was sound asleep, she got up quietly and walked to the bathroom. If she couldn't kill herself, she knew she had a way of sending the feelings away for at least a little while, and she couldn't wait to feel the adrenaline pumping in her veins.

She had almost forgotten where she had hidden the needles, and it took a while for her to find them but when she did she couldn't even bring herself back to her bed and started right there, on the bathroom floor.

She didn't care if people saw it, she wanted to slice her wrists open like she hadn't since she came there. To see the dark red blood dripping until she started to feel dizzy.

But she started sticking just the tip of the needles on her skin, and watching the droplets. One tiny ball after the other. When there were enough of them, set at the whole extension of her wrist, she ran the needle, making them all become one thin line. And she smiled within a shaky breath.

Her cuts weren't as straight as they used to be; she had lost the hand of it, but she knew she could get it back. And she kept opening them. Two. Three. The fourth was almost perfectly straight and she had to close her eyes after looking at it for a few seconds.

When she opened them, she almost screamed. Rachel was standing right there, with her hands on her opened mouth. Quinn could see the disgust in Rachel's face, and it made her eyes sting and try to cry, but she wouldn't let them. She held the needle in her closed fist and kept her eye on Rachel, unsure of what her next move would be.

"You are not taking your medicines." Rachel whispered, kneeling on the floor next to Quinn and looking at the red stains on the floor.

"You're right." Quinn nodded slowly, keeping her glaze down. It didn't matter the context, it didn't matter the situation. She wouldn't lie to Rachel. Suddenly, it was like all her beliefs were gone. Even all the reasoning she had with herself, explaining why she had to stop taking her meds, stopped making sense and were replaced by guilty with a quick glance of Rachel.

Rachel lifted her hand slowly and touched Quinn's cheek lightly, making her turn her face so that their eyes could be locked together again. Quinn felt her lower lip shivering. Rachel looked hurt. As if Quinn's cuts hurt her too.

While Quinn was lost on the girl's eyes, Rachel took advantage of the momentary distraction and grabbed Quinn's fist with her other hand, caressing it gently until Quinn relaxed enough to open it just slightly, and Rachel's finger slipped in, getting the needle out of there.

She picked the other needles that were resting in the middle of the blood on the floor, and threw all of them on the toilet. When Quinn heard the flush, she whimpered and moved her hands to hold the edge of the toilet as she watched the needles swirling away. She wanted to be mad at Rachel for doing that, but the words got stuck in her throat and she could never look at those big brown eyes with a look of hate.

Rachel got up to grab toilet paper and placed it on the top of the fresh wounds, watching the color change and replacing the sheets when they got soaked. She lost count of how many she had used when the blood finally stopped flowing.

She sat on the floor in front of Quinn, holding her wrist and running her thumb along the lines.

"Don't do this, Quinn." She murmured. Quinn looked up to her with a small pout. She knew what Rachel was talking about; she just hadn't seen it coming.

"Stop doing it. Please." She said every word slowly, looking deep inside Quinn's eyes and Quinn knew that she meant it. "Take your medicines again."

But Quinn had to interrupt her on that.

"I can't." She shook her head whispering and fluttering her eyes to fight the tears.

"Yes, you can." She moved her fingers, interlacing them with Quinn's. "You have to, Quinn."

She didn't need to say anything more. Quinn could hear the rest of it in her mind. She needed to stay there for Rachel. Rachel needed her. Rachel cared about her.

"Why are you doing this?" Quinn breathed out, overwhelming tears threatening to fall of her eyes with the next blink.

"You help me, I help you." Rachel shrugged with a small smile, holding up their hands together.

And the so many tears Quinn were holding started to fall, all at once, rolling down her face.

Rachel got up and pulled Quinn against her.

"Come here." She murmured, and pulled Quinn to follow her to her bed.

Rachel laid and pulled the covers for Quinn to lie down next to her. When Quinn felt Rachel hugging her, she sobbed. The proximity made her feel better than she had ever felt cutting. She closed her eyes while Rachel ran her fingers through her hair, and buried her face on the girl's shoulder, just like Rachel had done so many times.

"Quinn." Rachel called, and Quinn quickly looked up. "Promise me you'll take your meds? Please?"

Quinn gulped. She wanted to explain to Rachel all of her reasons. To tell her why she thought the medicines weren't good for them, but Rachel looked desperate, as if her life depended on Quinn's answers. And the words slipped out of her lips before she could stop them, doing the impossible to be sure that Rachel's eyes would light up again. And to knowing that she was going to be the reason for that light.

"Okay." She nodded, not sure if she would be able to keep her promise but with the will to try her best.

"Thank you." Rachel replied and hugged her tighter, running her fingers through Quinn's hair. "Goodnight, Quinn."

But Quinn couldn't reply. If she opened her mouth she would start sobbing again.

* * *

Eighteen minutes. That's how much time it took from when Quinn woke up until someone noticed her fresh scars and took her away for a checkup.

She woke up on Rachel's arms, and finding those big brown eyes as the first thing she saw on the morning made her heart skip a beat. Rachel had woken up earlier, and was watching her sleep, just like Quinn had done several times.

"Has anyone ever told you how beautiful your eyes are?" She whispered, with a husky morning voice.

"Good morning, Quinn." Rachel ignored her question, but smiled brightly and Quinn was thrilled to see how her compliment affected her roommate.

"Good morning." She looked down, and the droplets of dried blood on the sheets made the whole previous night pass in a flash in her mind, reminding her of everything that had happened. "Thank you for yesterday."

Rachel didn't even waited until she was done talking to start shaking her head. She knew Rachel wouldn't accept it, but she thought it was important to show to the brunette how grateful she was for what she had done.

When the medicines were given to them on the usual tiny plastic cups, Quinn could feel Rachel's eyes on her, and with one big gulp of the water she swallowed all of them, turning to Rachel with her mouth open widely before smiling again when Rachel held her thumb up in approval.

Quinn explained to Rachel that when they found out they would take her away to see the doctors and that she probably would be away for the whole day. When Rachel stated that she wasn't ready to leave the room by herself, Quinn took a mental note to make sure that the meals would be delivered in the room for her.

And now, feeling the cold metal of the table through the thin gown that she wore while the doctor ran his fingers all over her body looking for more evidence of self-harming, the only thing she could think about was whether or not Rachel had eaten. She hoped she had.

* * *

When all the tests had been taken, she was send directly to an extra session with the therapist and this time, unlike all the others, she had something on her mind, a question to be precise, that made her look forward to it.

"And when you had the needles on your hand. How did you feel then?"

Quinn had answered all the previous question with automatic answers; her mind wasn't there, it was building up the courage to ask her what she really wanted to know. And now she felt prepared, not caring about what the psychologist would think out of it.

"How did Rachel end up on my room?"

The psychologist was caught off guard, not understanding how this was related to her question, only to realize that it wasn't and that this was what was distracting Quinn. She frowned and shook her head, unsure of what Quinn was asking.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Quinn took a deep breath, playing with the hem of her dress.

"There are plenty of other rooms. How are they sorted? How did she end up being my roommate?"

"Oh." Now Quinn saw that her question was understood. "It's not random, if that's what you want to know. We separate the patients by how severe the case is." The therapist stopped, opening her mouth to talk again but hesitating and biting her lip before continuing. "I don't have permission to tell you a lot about that, but we thought that since she was very quiet and reserved in general, she wouldn't make you angry like the others did."

They fell in silence for a few minutes, but the therapist broke it.

"We never expected you two to grow so fond of each other, though. I guess this place is just full of good surprises."

Quinn was hoping to hear that it had been random. That maybe God didn't hate her after all, and had sent Rachel to help her. Therefore, she was a little bit disappointed in the psychologist response, and even more because she realized that she would have to swallow her pride to take the next pass that she needed, even though she wasn't sure if the woman was sarcastic or not when talking about how good it was that they were friends.

"Thank you." Quinn murmured, before explaining further. "For sending her to me."


	11. Chapter 11

No one could imagine how relieved Quinn was with the new dynamic of their nights. Now she didn't have to struggle with her urge to be close to her roommate before sleeping; if she didn't crawl to Rachel's bed, she could count on having the girl coming to hers.

Limbs wrapped around each other, they would fall asleep in a heartbeat and as odd as it seemed, since the new habit started, Rachel's problems during the night had stopped almost altogether. Not that she was magically cured now; she still had them, but they were happening on fewer and fewer occasions.

Strangely enough, they always started when Quinn wasn't around – but she was definitely there to make they go away.

Waking up like that, feeling a small body pressing against her, instead of having the nurses burst into the room yelling for her to get up, gave Quinn a whole new kind of glow. When she already woke up feeling happy, it was hard for the bad thoughts to return during the day. With that, even her eyes had a new kind of light. A light that was caused by Rachel, and noticed by the same, who smiled every time their eyes met.

But for Quinn, the best part was how easy things happened. It wasn't awkward, and it didn't feel weird, like all her previous interactions with people seemed to be. It was natural. As if her arms were made on the perfect size to embrace the girl's waist, and like their brains had some kind of connection that made even the deepest silences feel comfortable.

They didn't need to talk, as long as they were close to each other. But even then, the talks had become more and more frequent, and Quinn just couldn't get tired of hearing that sweet voice. She was slowly coming to understand a little bit more of what was going on inside Rachel's mind.

* * *

Quinn was sitting on her bed with her eyes closed while slender fingers ran through her hair. She had never been very fond of people messing with her hair, but Rachel had an undying affection for it, and even though there wasn't that much of hair to be styled, Rachel managed to make it look different every day.

"You don't like our psychologist very much, do you?"

Quinn was caught off guard with the question. Her eyes snapped open, and her face fell into a frown.

"No. I don't." She had no idea where this conversation was leading to, but she felt that it wasn't going to go well. Opening up was something she still had a hard time doing – which was one of the reasons she hated seeing the psychologist – and she just knew that Rachel wouldn't end it with just this question.

"Why not?" And these she was, just confirming what Quinn thought. She needed to take a deep breath before answering.

"I feel uncomfortable sharing my thoughts with other people."

"Oh! I'm sorry..." Rachel answered shyly, and Quinn was glad that she couldn't see the girl's face, because even just imagining it already made her feel guilty.

"No, I don't mean you. I don't like talking to _her_." Quinn could feel Rachel softening up after hearing what she said, and after thinking for a few seconds she realized that it was actually true: she couldn't think of anything that Rachel could ask and that she wouldn't answer.

Realizing how much power the girl had over her, made her shiver. She was vulnerable and completely at Rachel's mercy. But somehow, she either didn't know, or knew and didn't want to take advantage of it. Either one was remarkable in Quinn's mind.

"What are we going to do today?"

Quinn was glad the previous subject was over, but the new one wasn't exactly much easier. It was getting harder each day to think of new ways of entertaining Rachel, and she had officially ran out of ideas.

"I don't know. What do you want to do?" Again, is not like she could deny the girl anything.

But Rachel froze in silence. Like always, Quinn could sense that she was hesitating before suggesting something else.

She turned her head to face the girl with a reassuringly smile and nod.

"Tell me."

Rachel shrugged her shoulders and glanced at the window before looking down.

"You want go outside?" Quinn's smile widened.

"I thought... Maybe the yard?" She whispered, walking to look out the window. "There aren't a lot of people there."

Quinn couldn't explain why this made her so excited, but she nodded with all her will and a huge smile spread across her face.

"I think the yard would be perfect. You could get some fresh air, feel the nature around you. It's nice." She finished, trying to make any doubts that still hovered on the girl's mind go away.

And it seemed to work, because right after lunch Rachel was ready to leave the building since the first time she got in. Quinn smiled when she got out of the bathroom and saw the little girl sitting on her bed, with her legs swinging excitedly, and she quickly jumped to her feet when she saw the blonde.

"Let's go?" Rachel asked with a smile and Quinn answered it with a grip on her hand before opening the door to leave.

* * *

"It really feels nice." Rachel whispered, with her head tilted back and her eyes closed, while Quinn sat beside her watching all the girl's movement as if she was a baby discovering the world for the first time.

Rachel had chosen a place for them to sit. In front of the fountain, under a huge tree. Even though her mind insisted that she kept her eyes opened to watch Rachel, she forced herself to close them to feel exactly what the girl was feeling.

The breeze that kissed their faces, and made the leaves sway, making small noises that resembled little bells. The noise of the water coming from the fountain. The warmth of the sun. A bird, singing on the background. Another bird answering that call. The grass against their fingers.

Of course they could have sat on a bench, but touching the grass felt much more appealing to them at the time, so they sat right there, leaning against the tree.

Quinn opened her eyes again, tracing her fingers along the ridges of the tree. She had always complained about how cliché it was when young couples carved their names on trees – not to mention how it hurt the trunk! Right now it didn't feel so stupid anymore though, and she knew that if she had some kind of knife she too would be writing it right now.

But when Rachel opened her eyes, seeing Quinn's fingers moving restlessly, she must have thought that the girl was somehow anxious, because she stretched out her arm and got Quinn's hands on hers. It was funny how Rachel's hand felt even softer now, after Quinn had played with the trunk of wood.

Her eyes opened too, to watch their hands together, but with a shy smile she looked up and found Rachel's looking right back at her. She hated how her body betrayed her, showing everything she felt, like with the blush that flooded her cheeks at that moment, making Rachel giggle as if she knew she was responsible for it - as if she knew that she was the reason for why those butterflies seemed to have made a living home out of Quinn.

Quinn only watched as Rachel's other hand moved from behind her to take a flower off the ground, and her eyes followed as the girl took the flower to her nose, nuzzling it with a grin and sighing after scenting its smell. A dazzled smile came to Quinn's lips, and it grew brighter when Rachel's hands moved again, now to carefully place the flower behind Quinn's ear.

"Perfect." She murmured with a shy smile while admiring her masterpiece, as if the flower was just the piece that was missing on the girl's perfectly braided hair.

Quinn only realized that she was holding her breath when the fingers moved away, leaving a tingling sensation where they were brushed against her cheeks, and she let out the air slowly, feeling almost dizzy, lost in their little private paradise.

Almost no words had been exchanged, but Quinn thought it was better this way. Words could be hurtful when misunderstood or put in a bad way, and that would never happen with actions like those. Feeling the girl's fingers against her skin, together with the adoration look in her eyes, that somehow also managed to hold a little breath of shyness, made Quinn sure that whatever was happening to her, or whatever feeling she might have developed for Rachel, was reciprocated.

But simply thinking of it took her breath away. And when she heard a voice calling them out of their heaven, she couldn't help the groan that slipped out of her throat at the exact same time that her eyes got darker with anger, when looking at the nurse who was speaking to them.

"It's going to start raining soon, girls. You should come inside." She said, pausing as always, to make sure she was understood.

It only took a quick glance for Quinn to see that Rachel was with her in this too, and that she didn't want to leave quite yet either.

"We'll be going in a minute." Quinn answered, and thankfully the nurse left after nodding.

And Quinn dove back in their bubble, feeling her chest getting tighter while Rachel's eyes traveled, studying every inch of her before connecting with her eyes again. It was different. For once, Quinn didn't see fear on the big brown eyes. They had a new kind of shine in them, and they made Quinn's whole body shiver.

She was wrapped in a kind of happiness that made it almost impossible to breath. In a bold action, she stretched out her hand, fingers taut and reaching, and just when they got a light touch of the warm skin of Rachel's cheeks, she felt a droplet falling on her face.

Quinn blinked and pulled her arm back coyly, before looking up only to have another droplet falling right on the tip of her nose. And right then, the droplets became faster and more frequent. Quinn looked to Rachel and giggled, her wet hair already starting to fall out of the braid.

She got up, grabbing Rachel's hand and running through the empty yard as the summer shower washed them, momentarily cleaning all the worries and fears from their souls. Quinn knew they could get in trouble for that, but in that moment she just couldn't care. She ran as fast as she could, considering how little Rachel's legs were, until they reached the door, almost breathless.

With a quick glance, Quinn saw a wheel chair standing just a few feet from them. She pulled Rachel and made her sit there, taking the limitation out of their way so they could run faster, with her now pushing Rachel.

"You can't grab that wheel chair!"

"No running in the hallways!"

"What are you guys doing?! The floor is drenched! Someone could slip in here!"

But their giggles were louder, and they didn't hear any of the yelling nurses. Too caught up on what felt more as a runaway then a return to their room, feeling as free as birds, and crashing together on the bed as soon as they made inside.

Rachel's weight on top of Quinn didn't seem to bother her, regardless of how much trouble she was having to catch her breath again. And as their breaths got even again, their giggles faded away and their look became more intense, as if they had just suddenly been aware of how close to each other they were at that moment.

Damp clothes flushed against each other, Rachel leaned her forehead on Quinn's shoulder, breaking the eye contact and leaving space for both of them to take the deep breath they needed.

Quinn felt like her heart was about to pop out of her body, and she tried to excuse herself, vainly accusing the running, but deep down, she knew better.

Rachel's heart was beating against her own. Rachel's breath against her shoulder. Rachel's arms around her.

Kiss her. The little voice on the back of her mind kept whispering, and she shut her eyes closed tightly trying to make it go away.

She couldn't do it. Even though she knew Rachel had feelings for her too, there was no way for her to know if they weren't merely platonic. And in that case, a kiss wouldn't be welcomed. A kiss would ruin it, a kiss would ruin everything they had been building for so long now - all the proximity, all the trust.

Quinn had already ruined things enough during her life time.

She sighed, and somehow it caught Rachel's attention, and the girl looked up to her with a sad smile, as if she understood why Quinn had sighed. Quinn could see her eyes quivering in doubts too, but she wouldn't let her heart be filled with hope, because she feared how badly it would hurt if she was wrong.

But then soft fingertips started running across her jaw line, and she melted, leaning to the touch, and making Rachel's smile grow wider.

And then Rachel leaned, dropping a kiss on the top of her cheekbones, and she swooned feeling her stomach flutter and flip.

And then their lips touched.

And Quinn knew that it was too late.

She could never go now. She could never leave Rachel.

* * *

**A/N: **A big thank you to my Beta, CharlloteWindsor.I hope you guys liked this chapter, and please review, because I think this story will get in a short hiatus!


	12. Chapter 12

Quinn kept her eyes closed for more than a minute, afraid of having reality hitting her when she opened them again. But Rachel seemed to realize the avoidance, and subtly cleared her throat.

Her tongue poked out to moist her lips when their eyes met, and when she watched Rachel's eyes hovering down to the action, her cheeks blushed and she let out a small giggle, that made Rachel look up again and finally smile, leaving behind the anxiety that previously was held by her glaze.

''Can I do that again?" Rachel asked with a coy smile, letting her hair fall and its tip brush against Quinn's cheeks.

Quinn smile grew, and she moved her hand up to fix Rachel's hair behind her ear before nodding and whispering a yes.

She never imagined she could enjoy the anticipation, but with her eyes closed and feeling Rachel's breath getting closer until mixing with hers, she could swear that something was alive inside her stomach.

It was different. She obviously couldn't compare it to the feeling of having a baby alive inside of her, but it was a nice change from the dullness and emptiness that took her body as home on the last months.

But just like everything in Quinn's life, the good ended too soon.

"What did you two do with the hall-"

She jumped when hearing the noise of the door being slammed open, and moved so drastically that Rachel rolled from the top of her, falling with her back on the mattress and her eyes open wide in surprise.

''What the hell is going on here?" A shocked nurse asked, with her hands on her hips and her eyebrows furrowed.

Quinn quickly got up from the bed and walked to her, reaching her arm with a quivering hand and gulping before finding her words.

"Please, please, don't tell anyone!"

Quinn didn't know exactly what the institution policy was for dating, but she assumed that since they were separated by gender and not allowed to get inside the rooms of people from the opposite one, it mustn't be allowed.

The nurse took a deep sigh and shook her head, jerking away from Quinn's touches and ignoring her plea as she walked to the bed and started pulling the wet sheets and shushing Rachel off the bed.

"Look at the mess you two did! Weren't you warned to come inside before the rain?"

Quinn was so caught up on her thoughts, trying to figure out whether the woman was pretending not to have seen what she saw or pretending not to have heard Quinn, that she almost didn't realize the terrified look in Rachel's eyes.

She stood still and quiet, watching as Rachel's lower lip started quivering and her eyes wandered through the room until finding the closet, and Quinn was almost sure it was going to happen.

The nurse huffed before leaving the room with the sheets in her hands and slamming the door closed, and Quinn silently cursed her and all the other members of the staff who thought this was a normal way of closing and opening doors.

But she sent her thoughts away with a shake of her head, and closed the distance between her and Rachel by wrapping the girl in a tight hug, that she hoped would be enough to stop the attack before it got even worse.

"Hey?'' She called, but instead of looking up to her, Rachel buried her face even deeper on her the crook of her neck and Quinn took a breath deep enough to make her go dizzy. She had to remind herself to add this to the list of worst feelings: the feeling of having Rachel melting down under her embrace, and not being able to stop it, or to make the girl feel better at all. Because only she knew how better Rachel had made her.

* * *

Quinn was already lying under the covers when Rachel got out of the bathroom in her pajamas, running her hand to get a few knots out of her hair. Quinn scooted closer to the wall, leaving the most part of the bed empty, and hoping that even after what happened today Rachel would still be okay with this.

She breathed out in relief when Rachel gave her one of her must truthful smiles and climbed on bed next to her, throwing the cover over herself and snuggling against Quinn.

They laid in silence, and Quinn lost notion of time while the tip of her fingers gently caressed Rachel's arm. She wanted to lean and take the girl's lips on hers again, but she noticed Rachel was lost deep in thoughts, and gave her some space, restraining herself to only drop a soft kiss on the brunette's temple.

"Do you think they will pull us apart now?" Rachel asked, with her voice almost failing by the end of the sentence, and Quinn bit her lip.

''I have no idea...'' She answered honestly. ''I hope they don't.'' Quinn whispered, pulling Rachel even closer to her, as if she needed to enjoy those moments before losing them.

''They can't.'' Rachel answered in a whine, shaking her head slowly, and Quinn could see a bright tear forming on the corner of her eye. ''You're helping me so much.''

Quinn felt a tug on her heart when hearing it and feeling Rachel's small fists clenching on the fabric of her top.

"I am?" She asked hesitantly, with a small frown of doubt.

Rachel looked up to her, incredulous that this question was even made, and Quinn could almost feel her being a little offended by it.

''Don't you notice how far I've came? How things changed since I came here for the first time?" She asked shyly, turning her head away from Quinn's piercing glaze.

''But Rach...'' Quinn wanted to reason back, but she would need to do it twice more cautiously after Rachel's reaction to her first question. ''You are taking meds, and going to therapy...''

Rachel turned to her again, and she chewed her inner cheek, anxiously waiting for a reaction, but getting confused when Rachel smiled softly and nuzzled her jaw.

''You have no idea of how important you are.'' Rachel said in a whisper, stating the realization that had just come to her. But Quinn still didn't fully believe her; she just couldn't imagine herself, being broken the way she was, managing to help someone else when she couldn't even find the strength to help herself.

But she wanted to believe, so she didn't fight any longer, nor argued any further. Instead, she grabbed Rachel's chin and looked deep in her eyes.

She wanted to thank Rachel for the kind words, and for the even kinder gestures, but the words were trapped on her throat.

Moving an inch closer, she allowed her lip to stroke Rachel's ever so gently, and when they parted under her touch, she hummed and moved them in union, melting into each other, and using every movement as a thank you that her tongue couldn't speak out.

And when Rachel hummed back, and brushed the back of her palm against Quinn's cheeks, she knew she had been understood.

* * *

A few days had passed, and they days didn't change at all. Quinn was much more observant of everything, trying to find any hints that someone else knew about what had happened, but since she didn't find anything, she was already convinced that the nurse had been a nice woman and not told anyone about them.

So when the therapist brought it up, she was as surprised as she could be.

''Quinn, are you listening to me?" The woman asked with a quirked eyebrow, and Quinn groaned, wishing she could disappear in to the ground.

''I just didn't expect you to hide for so long. I mean, it's been almost a week. Even though I realize you have problems on sharing your experiences, I guess I underestimated your ability to hide something as big as that.''

''Is not that big of a deal.'' She snapped back, with a frown and her arms crossed against her chest.

''It isn't? Why? You didn't enjoy it?" The woman leaned forward, as if she was just so interested in hearing Quinn's answer.

"It's none of your business.'' Quinn answered in a murmur, instead of shouting out loud how much she enjoyed, like her body wanted to do. But when they fell in a short silence, Quinn sighed, taking the courage to speak her mind. ''Will we need to change rooms?" She asked apprehensively.

''Do you want to change rooms?" She asked, squinting her eyes, and Quinn shook her head shyly, looking down to her hands. ''I guess we could see how it goes, for a while.'' And for the first time ever, Quinn felt like hugging the woman instead of killing her.

''Thank you!" She answered with a big and honest smile, which was met with a cynical look and a shake of head that only confused Quinn more.

''May I remind you that relationships are not advised for this stage of your life? You should be focusing on yourself, Quinn. But we've tried everything with you, and you've rebelled against all our efforts. I assure you it will hurt much worst to learn it on your own.''

And Quinn angry frown came back to her face. But what scared her the most, is that deep down, she knew the therapist was right this time.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm sorry for taking so long and for the short update. Life has just been really busy lately, but I promise I'll try to find more time to write. Any mistakes are mine, I wanted to update soon and didn't send it for my Beta. Please review, they really make me wanna keep going! And again, thanks for your patience :)


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